The curse of the Jaguar
by Inuvik
Summary: As a new threat hovers over Gotham City, Batman has to face the fact that a life of violence destroys one's soul. Will he find a way to reconcile himself with his humanity and save Gotham citizens? Post The Dark Knight - Poison Ivy.
1. Prologue

_**Brazil - North Amazonian Jungle**_

_**June7, 2000 – 9:43 pm**_

* * *

The Land Rover reached the top of a steep portion of a forest trail, its headlights briefly lighting the Rio Negro before sinking back down into the jungle. Although the spectacle of shimmering waters under the moon light should have caused some whistles, the occupants of the vehicle were too weary to notice. The almost non-stop screeching sound of the branches and leaves brushing against the vehicle's side combined with complete darkness and a moist, stifling atmosphere was an ordeal that none of them had imagined living in their lifetime.

Sitting on the rear seat Pamela Isley, PhD student in vegetal biology at the University of Washington, winced when her side of the Rover plunged into a pothole. Reaching the remote Amerindian tribe her Director of Research had chosen to study was going to cost her her back. However, paralysis wasn't the worst thing that threatened her at the moment.

With a disgusted pout, Pamela cast a dark glance at the expedition chemist, Adam Hicks, who was sitting next to her. For almost an hour the man's breath came in painful erratic rattles. She winced at the acrid smell invading her nostrils. Obviously being a multi PhD scientist from MIT didn't guarantee the ability to grasp that gluttony was best avoided before a bumpy ride. Nor how to use deodorants.

Pamela muttered a curse and looked away. Once more she tried to escape from Hicks's flabby, sweat covered thigh. But like the previous ones, her attempt to create a little space failed. Hicks' body immediately swallowed the gap and pinned her further against the door.

Sitting on the chemist's left, her bench mate sent her a desperate look. He too appeared to be more and more afraid that Hicks wouldn't be able to keep his dinner down for very long.

Though aware of the problem, their guide, an Amerindian with a short, muscular body, had told them an hour ago that he preferred not to stop. The jungle was not safe at night, he had warned.

Pamela took a deep breath and forced her mind to wander back to Manaus's Eiffel style city market. The scent of manioc rose in her mind, a perfumed memory that briefly appeased her until a strong, sudden jolt sent her head colliding with the window and tore apart her peaceful vision.

Unbalanced, the chemist crashed into her shoulder.

"Get off, Hicks!" she barked, pushing him away just before they hit another pothole in the middle of a sharp turn.

"S-s-sorry, Pamela," he muttered before clenching his fingers on the driver seat. "St-STOP!" he exclaimed, eyes bulging.

The guide cast a quick glance in the mirror and slammed on the brakes. But the Land Rover's wheels skidded, and the vehicle swerved across the trail into a rut.

Brutally tossed forward and back, the sick man's belly crashed down on Pamela's knees.

A putrid mush immediately splashed inside the cabin.

Horrified, Pamela screamed and jumped out of the vehicle. Completely forgetting about the nocturnal dangers of the rainforest she headed toward the border of the trail and wiped the vomit off of her legs with the tall, humid ferns that bordered the Rio Negro. This was the most disgusting thing that had ever happened to her.

Not yet ready to climb back into the vehicle, Pamela leaned against the muddy rear bumper in order to calm down and control her own stomach. Above her head the roof lights from the Land Rover attracted a swarm of mosquitoes and moths, but she preferred to deal with the buzzing insects than with Hicks. Closing her eyes she then focused on taking slow, deep breaths, thinking of wild and empty landscape.

It worked. Gradually her nausea eased and her heart-rate slowed.

Until a loud breath sounded in the night; a loud breath that had nothing to see with the pathetic death rattle coming from Hicks a few meters behind her.

Very slowly Pamela raised her head and felt a cold sweat running down her spine. In front of her two golden eyes glowed in the darkness of the trail.

_Stay calm, don't run away! This would likely trigger an attack, _she thought, remembering what the travel guide advised to do in case of an encounter with a jaguar.

Feeling her heart beating so hard it threatened to break free from her chest, she tried to move aside very slowly.

But the beast growled, and in the oppressive darkness, two white teeth appeared. Reflecting the vehicle's lights, they seemed as sharp as the most deadly dagger.

Pamela froze, clenching her fingers on the rear bumper. Not far away, she could hear the voice of her Director, Ivan Nimanec, talking to their guide, apologizing for the forced stop. She tried to cry for help, but her throat was painfully dry and only a strangled whisper came out of her mouth. Shelter was so close and yet unreachable.

A shot echoed through the jungle.

"In the truck. Now!" the guide cried out.

Startled, she turned wide, terrorized eyes toward him and saw him aiming his rifle toward the jaguar. Partially lightened, his face looked like a warrior mask used in Amerindian ceremonies. His tight jaw and large, unblinking eyes conveyed the fear the man was actually feeling.

"Pamela! Come quickly!"

Her Director's voice jerked her out of her trance, and she rushed back inside, pushing Hicks who stood in her way. The latter, grasping the situation, quickly dove into the cabin and closed the door.

At the same time, the front doors slammed, and, a second later, the rear occupants were tossed against each other when the Land Rover's wheels skidded on the mud under the sharp sight of a quiet but powerful feline.


	2. Ch 1

**Gotham City - West Harlow District **

**July 23, 2009 - 10:37 pm **

* * *

A lightning bolt flashed into the sky and the thunder roared.

Crouched on the edge of a roof overlooking West Harlow District, Batman lifted worried eyes toward the sky. The dark, ominous clouds that threatened the city since the beginning of the evening was closer, and the wind was now strong enough to lift detritus on the ground, bending the trees as if they were common weeds. Finally, the storm was going to hit Gotham. Head-on.

Slightly annoyed, Batman nonetheless directed the receiving dish of his acoustic amplifier towards the building across the street. Coupled with thermal vision, his sonar was picking up faint energy readings on the second floor.

Seconds later voices crackled in his ear receptor, weak but clear enough to confirm the human presence on this level.

"What do ... have that ... inte... us?"

"...tnership."

"We al... v' one!"

"I know. Ho...ger deal."

"Who exa... we?"

"I think the... should ask …. much high... bid?"

On the roof, Batman's hand clenched into a fist as a surge of adrenalin flooded his body. Even cut by static he would recognize the Scarecrow's voice anywhere. Against all odds the anonymous call Gordon had received this morning was not a hoax. Another lightning bolt tore the night apart, but this time he ignored it. Nothing would make him stand down now. Tonight the Scarecrow would sleep in one of Arkham's high security cells.

Batman quickly returned the equipment to his belt, adjusted the half-mask respirator on his lower face - an added protection against the Scarecrow's vaporized chemical weapons - and cast a final look at the streets. Assured that they were deserted, he unfolded his massive silhouette and threw himself into the air.

Just as a powerful clap of thunder shook the city the warehouse's bay window shattered under Batman's weight and velocity.

As soon as he hit the ground, Gotham's vigilante rolled, stood up, and swooped on the three thugs who stood in the middle of a mezzanine office.

Caught by surprise, the criminals did not have time to react. Sent crashing on the wall five feet behind them, they collapsed on top of each other with a dull sound. As groans of pains echoed Batman hid a satisfied smirk under his mask. Despite the grayish reconstitution of the scene, he had no difficulty to spot Scarecrow's rangy silhouette pinned under the fat body of one of his partners.

"Get off, Hicks!" Scarecrow yelled, pushing the man away with all his strength.

But frozen, this latter was looking at Batman, eyes bulging of terror. "P-p-please!..." he begged, "D-don't hurt me."

Disgusted, Batman grabbed Scarecrow and the fat man by their collars and roughly dragged them to a nearby pillar, keeping a suspicious eye on the last thug who had cushioned their fall. Although free from the weight of his partners this one remained still on the ground, flat on his stomach, face down.

Batman tied his prisoners together when he saw the man suddenly stand up and stagger toward the mezzanine stairs. In the second that followed, a batarang hit the fugitive in his back. A cry of pain echoed while the man stumbled and fell down the stairs.

Angry, Batman tightened a last knot and lunged after him.

But when he reached the edge of the stairs a shot echoed and made him crouch down in haste. From his position he scanned the floor ten feet below, another batarang ready in his hand. But the dark space was empty. Batman cursed. He couldn't get down the stairs without offering an easy target. He was aiming his grappling gun at one of the roof apparent girders when the metallic creaking of a door reverberated.

The man had just escaped.

Determined to catch him, Batman rushed back to the smashed window, crushing glass underfoot. Seconds later he was running along the edge of the roof, his cape streaming behind him.

With vengeful eyes he scanned the surrounding streets in search for any human sign, but the only colored shapes he could see were all coming from Gordon's own vehicle and from an unmarked van in a perpendicular street giving on the alley behind the warehouse.

Furious to have been shaken off, Batman took out a tiny radio calibrated to the Commissioner's frequency.

"Package ready," he growled, activating the Tumbler's autopilot to merge on his signal.

Gordon's voice acknowledged a mere second later, thanking him.

Batman stared at the dark streets, his jaw tightly clenched. Although he should have felt satisfied about the successful outcome of this operation, something was bothering him. After three months without any clue this arrest was too easy. And where was the bloody thug that had managed to escape his grasp? Something didn't feel right.

The low sound of the V12 attracted his attention. Without hesitation he jumped down and slid into the pilot seat. A moan escaped his lips followed by a curse. His wounded shoulder did not appreciate tonight's stunt, and he could already feel Alfred's reproachful glance burning on his neck. But even if he knew he should stand down for tonight, he was too upset to head back to the manor right now. Less than five minutes later the Tumbler merged on the city's main highway in the direction of the Narrows. The night was still young, and by the end of it the dawn would find the usual drug dealers and thieves tied to streetlights.

His fist crashed on the Tumbler's wheel. That served nothing! Police officers or their comrades would only set them free with a laugh.

"Caught again by the bat? Hey, better luck next time!" some said.

"You guys're lucky; the bat shows more mercy to your ass than to ours."

"I'm fucking tired of setting ya free. Hope next time he'll kill ya!"

Batman was feeling the usual dark ire flooding in his veins again when a single light appeared behind him.

He frowned and accelerated to lose the biker. The light weakened as the space increased. Briefly. Welcoming the action, Batman took the first exit to move below the highway, keeping an eye on the lower central screen now set on rear view. This might have been the real reason behind the Scarecrow affair. A trap set for him. Well, this game, he knew how to play.

Changing his plan, Batman headed back toward the docks. Not too far from his bunker he knew that the streetlights in this sector had a tendency to have a very short life span.

Five blocks further he turned right into a narrow alley between two abandoned buildings that had once housed illegal workshops. In the impenetrable darkness they cast at their feet, the Tumbler disappeared.

Hidden in a recess, Batman watched with satisfaction shards of brick falling to the ground as the metallic jaw of his grappling hook stuck into the wall of the facing building. A second later the rope shook violently when the bike hit it, and he clenched his teeth in an effort to not let go.

Suddenly restrained, the bike rose on its rear wheel, slamming its driver down on the ground before crashing him under its mass.

Ignoring the pain in his wrist and shoulder, Batman swooped down on the biker. Without effort he dragged the driver from beneath the vehicle and, as if he weighed no more than a feather, roughly pinned him against the wall.

Although the biker's feet were not touching ground anymore, his body remained limp.

Determined to get answers before warning Gordon of his catch, Batman shook the groggy thug. After a few seconds of this treatment the biker stirred slightly.

"Why are you following me?" Batman growled loud enough to be heard above the sound of the pouring rain.

The biker suddenly put up a struggle, using the wall to arch his back enough to slide his arm behind it. Guessing the reason of this maneuver, Batman knocked the man's right shoulder against the wall until he heard the metallic clatter of a weapon falling on the ground.

Satisfied, he then increased the pressure on the biker's neck and dug the sharp teeth on his forearm plate into his throat. The effect was immediate. The man stopped fighting, and his fingers clenched on Batman's arm in a desperate attempt to alleviate the suffocation.

Batman repeated his question.

"To congra...tulate you!" a strangled voice barked through a coughing fit. "You've just ruined... a se...curity... inves...tigation!"

Stunned, he released his pressure. Briefly.

"Give me proof of what you're saying," he growled, pushing again.

The biker coughed. "The hell... I'm going to tell you any...thing!"

A kick hit his armor, and the biker swore, furious to have caused more pain to himself than he had inflicted to the Dark Knight.

"Bloody hell!"

Batman frowned at the words he had just heard.

He heard them too often lately, in Alfred's mouth.

Batman shuddered, realizing suddenly that though rough from anger, the voice wasn't so masculine.

With a quick move, Batman removed the biker's helmet. A thin face with chin-length hair appeared. Despite the fact that it was reconstituted by his sonar in shades of grey, it was definitely feminine. And familiar. Wondering if his mind was playing tricks on him he stared at her for a brief, tense moment until a blurry memory of a rainy night in Lhasa resurfaced. The night where he had inadvertently been dragged into an Interpol operation by a young cop working undercover.

_Oh crap,_ he sighed, _not again_...

With difficulty Batman forced his hands to release their grasp.

Suddenly free, the woman fell down, and in the darkness she crawled out of reach until she hit a wall. Furious, she escaped another curse.

He shuddered. There was no question: it was Kate.

Feeling a mix of annoyance and worry, Batman shook his head and activated the Tumbler's headlights.

Blinded, the woman quickly raised her hand in front of her eyes but stopped her arm in mid air to clench it against her wounded side. A moan escaped her lips as she closed her eyes tight, obviously trying to control a wave of pain.

After a few seconds she slowly stood up and, seeking support on the wall to keep her balance, she raised her eyes toward him.

"Who warned you about tonight?" she asked, slightly breathless.

Batman bit his lower lip. The operation had been a trap, but not for him. He had been manipulated to wreck her mission. And right now he didn't know which situation was worse.

"Anonymous call."

"Fuck!" she barked**. **"Look, this is going way further than this damned city, so I'll say this only once: stay away from Crane and his business. He's ours now."

Holding her left arm close to her chest as if it were broken, she then staggered toward her Browning 9mm that was lying in a nearby puddle. With a moan of pain she picked it up, put it back into its belt strap, and repeated the painful maneuver for her helmet.

While she passed a hand on its surface to check for cracks, Batman moved toward the bike and lift it back on its wheels, discreetly sliding a micro-emitter under the front light.

Her jaw clenched, the INTERPOL officer sent him a last dark look and put her helmet back on. Without saying a word she climbed on the seat with difficulty, took a moment to straighten up, then drove away under Batman's shocked eyes.

As he watched her tail light disappear into the night, he could not help but wondering if he had not just declared war on Interpol. He could hear Alfred's sarcastic comment already. Gotham City Police Department was not enough?

_Damn it!_

But why had Gordon not been kept on the loop? Surely if the international agency were investigating in Gotham, he would be aware of their presence. Maybe they had not trusted anyone in this city to keep their operation a secret. Not that it had mattered in the end. There had been a mole somewhere.

Perplexed, Batman climbed back into the Tumbler and activated the tracking system. A grid of the Fifth District appeared on the central console.

He was watching Kate's red dot moving away when a shooting pain seared from his left shoulder and down his upper body, strong enough to take his breath away. His jaw clenched. As he realized that the sticky liquid he felt running down his arm was not sweat, a long sigh escaped his lips. Alfred was going to give him hell for tearing his stitches again.

Irritated to have to stand down for tonight, Batman was driving back toward the main highway when he saw Katherine's signal still at a crossroad between a park and a school. A hint of worry seized him. By daylight, the streets there would be full of playing children. She could not have chosen such a spot as her base of operations.

For the second time of the evening he changed his plan and turned around to merge onto her signal. Driving a motorbike under such weather was not a pleasant ride, and doing it while injured... A feeling of guilt swept over him. He had done quite a number on her tonight, and although adrenaline could mask a lot of injuries, it did not make miracles. At least not for long.

He was at less than fifty meters from her position when Kate's dot suddenly moved again.

A sigh of relief escaped his lips. Until he realized that she was executing a series of right turns.

With a smirk on his face he turned left below the highway, hid the Tumbler behind a large pillar, and cut his engine. Shortly after, he saw her bike driving up the one-way road he had just left.

Without noticing his presence, she continued on her way and turned left at the next junction.

_Haysville_, he thought, feeling reassured by this most logical choice to establish a discreet base.

Near the docks, some areas were currently being transformed into a new urban _paradise_. Within a stone's throw from midtown, the place was not short of small, abandoned buildings or warehouses waiting to be destroyed.

Careful to keep two blocks between them, Batman resumed his tailing under a lashing rain. The wind was intensifying, sweeping the detritus on the ground; above the streets, the lights were swaying dangerously.

The bike's signal finally stopped as he turned into a badly street. Satisfied, Batman stopped the Tumbler under the shadow a huge tree just as a lightning bolt lightened the city as if broad day light.

Kate's silhouette appeared briefly, limping on an immersed sidewalk, half bent, fighting gusts of wind.

A sudden movement, a dozen of feet in front of her, attracted his gaze. Batman narrowed his eyes, and saw a man stepping out of an old three-story apartment.

Worried, he put his hand on the door handle, ready to intervene. But he did not have to as a second later, he saw Kate waving to him. A sigh of relief escaped his lips as he saw the man grabbing Kate's arm and wrapping it around his neck.

A team mate coming for help.

Protected from the outside turmoil, Batman watched the two officers covering the short distance toward their building with difficulty. As they finally reached it and were pushed inside a dimly lit hallway by a rushing wind, Batman recorded the GPS coordinates. At least, she was not alone to deal with the aftermath of her decision to run after him.

Embarrassed and annoyed by the outcome of his operation, Batman ignited the Tumbler's engine, and sidled back into the street, silent but powerful guardian of Gotham's nights.


	3. Ch 2

**Gotham City - Wayne Tower**

**July 24, 2009 - 9:36 am**

* * *

Left arm in a brace, Bruce stood in front of his office's bay window, gaze lost on the ominous clouds that unleashed a flooding rain on Gotham.

Three hundred feet down a monstrous traffic paralyzed the avenue; pedestrians hurried to take refuge in the buildings's lobbies before a gust of wind would snatch their useless umbrellas out of their hands. The city was as bleak as a morning of November, and like her, Bruce began to feel a stronger force immobilizing him. A force that had linked his fate to Gotham's in blood long ago.

A discreet buzz sounded in the hushed atmosphere of the office, plunged in half shadows.

Jerked out of his thoughts, Bruce took the cell phone out of the inner pocket of his jacket with a wince of pain.

_Hicks released. Procedural error. _

_No Interpol mission on-going._

As Bruce's eyes quickly scanned Gordon's SMS his jaw tightened of rage and incomprehension. What the hell was going on?

Bruce took a deep breath to control his rage. For four years now he fought against criminality tirelessly, and each time he thought he had made some progress, bringing him some hope that the dawn was close, something unexpected happened and threw him back to square one.

In the wake of what had happened the previous evening, he was now furious. Furious that his utmost desire to eradicate the criminal plague that corrupted the city had been hijacked to ruin an Interpol's operation, or so he believed. Anyway, no matter which agency Kate was working for nowadays, the result was the same.

Damn it! It was as if he had learnt nothing from Freeze's case. He was still manipulable.

His hands clenched into fists at the thought, and not for the first time since Rachel's death, he wondered if Batman were the solution to Gotham's problems.

_Rachel... _

Her kind face appeared in the mist, and Bruce closed his eyes to chase her ghost away. Despite what Alfred said, the pain was still consuming him. Alive.

_Alive?_ he chuckled sadly and shook his head.

With the coming anniversary of his parent's death, his wound started to burn again, as if she had been murdered only yesterday.

Though the weight of Batman's armor on his shoulders allowed him to find solace a few hours each night, it would never erase the fact that once more he was the survivor.

Was this his fate? Guilt and dark ire? He really was back to square one.

Searching an answer in the elements he wouldn't find in himself, Bruce was listening to the regular noise of the rain striking the windows when a knock on his door sounded.

"Come in," he said, not averting his eyes from the window.

The door opened, barely audible, and a second later his secretary's stilettos echoed on the hard floor, disrupting the silence of his office.

"The report you asked for yesterday before leaving, Mr. Wayne," she announced with her usual dry tone, switching on the lights.

Surprised both by the announcement and the sudden light, Bruce turned his head toward the old woman and frowned. Behind her glasses her wrinkled, blue eyes stared at him with the usual condescending expression.

Employed by Fox one year ago to replace Cindy, who had left after the Gotham Sun had suggested that Bruce might have had an affair with her, she was Alfred in a petticoat. Without his sense of humor.  
_  
No more risk_, Lucius had said.

Well that had been more than obvious since the first day he had met with her. The woman was as efficient as her attitude toward him was freezing.

"Thank you, Miss Landsbury. Put it down on my desk, please," he replied, turning his attention back to the street while her energetic steps reverberated.

"Mr. Fox just called. A last minute problem is keeping him home this morning. He'll meet you after the board meeting."

"Very well. After the board meeting then," Bruce replied absently. The street was desert of pedestrians now, only the cars remained under the elements, trapped by their own nature, less agile, forced to follow the path.

"May I ask what happened to your arm, sir?"

"Spelunking accident."

"May I suggest then, that next time, you try a bullet in the mouth."

Bruce nearly choked in front of his secretary's insolent comment. "Sorry?"

"I am merely stating the obvious, sir. Spelunking while the skies are opened above us can only be a suicide, and drowning is rather painful and slow to my mind."

Bruce sighed of despair. Definitively, he had to find a way to blackmail Lucius to find another _brainless_ secretary. "Thank you for this _professional_ input, Miss Landsbury. Be assured that I'm not there, though the report you brought me might as well do the trick."

"Good reading then, sir," the secretary replied with a smirk, turning her heels back toward the door.

A sigh of relief escaped Bruce's lips when he heard it shutting close. Not liking being in front of the windows while the lights were on, he moved back to his desk to cast a look at the thick report on the Energy Department. As he sat down, his fingers skimmed through it. One hundred and ninety pages? Damn... He did not know just how right he was.

But where the hell had she found the time to do this? Definitely, that woman was a witch!

Half an hour later Bruce closed the report, careful not to make it slam on the desk. His mind was too preoccupied to focus on spreadsheets, graphs, and analysis. If not Interpol, for who Kate was working now? She could not be NSA as she was British, but maybe it was a partnership between different police corps. If it were the case, were they responsible for Hicks's release? An attempt to gain back the control of their operation?

Bruce shook his head, worried.

Playing this way with criminals was too dangerous a game for his peace of mind. A game that innocent people could dearly pay, and whatever the underlying reason it would never be worth the risk. More than ever he would not let the city be used that way, at least not without knowing why. And the only way he was going to get on the loop was to put Kate and Hicks under his personal watch.

Motivated by his new agenda, Bruce stood up and headed toward his personal lift.

Half an hour later, he was lying flat on his stomach on a small building's roof, looking through binoculars to the third-floor flat across the street. Thankfully, the rain had stopped a few minutes ago, and the wind speed had dropped to a slight breeze. Unlike the previous night, his accoustic amplifier was reconstituting Kate's and her team mate's voice almost as clearly as if he were in the room with them.

oOo

"Hey! Wake up, Hawkins."

With a groan, Kate grasped the sheet to burrow herself and froze, breath taken away as several bursts of pain hit her.

_Bloody hell, was there any part_ _that didn't hurt?_ she wondered, eyes and jaw clenched tight.

"How do you feel?"

Barely registering the question through a haze of pain, Kate took a deep breath and opened her eyes. The room appeared blurry, and she blinked a few times to clear her sight. On her right, sitting at the desk, Jack was reading a report of the city police department on his laptop.

"Fine," she muttered, relieved to see her Director's back.

Taking advantage that his attention was not on her, Kate slowly sat up on the sofa bed, clenching her teeth not to cry when her ribcage, and her back complained at the movement.

Something fell in to her lap. With a disdainful look, she grabbed the pocket mirror Jack had tossed over his shoulder and threw it into the garbage bin at his feet before standing up slowly, very slowly.

"Care to tell me what possessed you to chase him?"

Kate looked up and bit her lower lip. Even if Jack's voice was as calm as usual, she knew she was in trouble.

The confirmation fell like a blade a second later when his cold blue eyes turned toward her.

"What? I had to make sure he wouldn't step on our feet again," she replied, not stupid enough to answer that she had lost her temper after the disastrous outcome of their operation.

Months of grueling work of planting her in the syndicate was supposed to finally pay. Last night, she had been so close to discover what she was sure was the missing piece that would explain the reason of their diplomat's murder. But Batman had to ruin it all. Anyway... Too much blood had been shed to give up right now. The sound of the Arkham's guard's body crashing fifty feet down the roof or the Intensive Treatment building into the inner courtyard made Kate wince of rage again. Nobody should have died during the Scarecrow breakout. But since when did things go according to plans? Damn it! In her plan, Batman should not have tried to reduce her to pulp either.

_Bloody bastard!_ She mentally swore, stopping in front of the wardrobe mirror sliding doors, and craning her neck to try to see the extent of the bruise on her back. His bat projectiles hurt like hell.

"For God's sake what do they teach in the Fort nowadays? To say the guy is a maverick isn't strong enough. Whatever you told him probably only convinced him to dig further."

"How do you know I talked to him?" Kate asked, masking her surprise under a wince of pain.

"Because of this!" Jack retorted, throwing her a small piece of electronic.

Kate caught it and felt her eyes widening at the sight of a transmitter in her palm. _Fuck__!_ Batman had managed to slip it when he had put back her bike on its wheels!

She had no stopped opinion on him before coming in Gotham, having only read the file the NSA had written on him. They thought the guy was dangerous, but did not believe he was a killer, most probably a scapegoat for the corruption running wild in the city. As long as he fell on that category, they did not feel compel to intervene. _He_ was Gotham's City Police Department problem, period.

Well, not anymore if she had her word. The guy was a real nuisance for all the cops working undercover.

"Bloody muck-up!" Kate swore, not daring to cross Jack's eyes after this. Not only was the mission a total failure, but on top of it she had compromised their base.

A shudder ran down her spine as she headed toward the kitchen of their small apartment, trying her best not to limp. Before leaving Kathmandu's Embassy for Gotham three months ago, London had coldly threatened to send them for year in the Falklands if they were caught red-handed during the operation in US ground.

Maintaining good diplomatic relations would prevail over their investigation.

Jack had warned her that she would do his time. He was too old to run everyday on the island's high cliffs which were continuously swayed by the south Atlantic cold winds, a drill sergeant yelling to move faster.

Feeling her boss' burning look on her neck, Kate put a hand on the counter and slowly bent forward to open the fridge. "And what's the plan now, aside from moving to a new base?" she asked, tense as she grabbed a bottle of water.

"For me, it's going to tap Hicks's cosy home. The man's already out of jail, and that sounds a tad suspicious for my peace of mind," he replied, rising to his feet, "For you, it's going to this address to ask for a medical opinion," he added, holding a piece of paper to her. "Just say you're coming from Alfred."

With a discreet sigh of relief Kate took it, cast a quick glance, and threw it into the shredder machine. "I'd better watch your back," she said, shaking her head, certain that she would fail the exam.

"Indeed, it would be great. Especially if we now have the Batman on our tail. But prove to me you're fit for duty," Jack replied, taking out his PPK from its belt holster and aiming the barrel at her head. "Grab the gun, soldier. That's an order."

Kate shuddered. She had seldom seen Jack angry enough to verbally state an order, and reminded her the few times when her father had lost his patience in front of her and Will's difficulties to stop horsing around. Calm but curt.

_SAS guys..._ she mentally chuckled, though she kept herself from smiling at all.

"Com'on, Jack, I feel fine," she replied, rolling her eyes and moving out of the kitchen. The gun followed her as she sat down on a nearby stool with a wince of pain.

"Okay, maybe not _fine_ fine, but _fine_ enough. I'll stay in the van, watching your back, deal?" she asked. But less than four feet from her, Jack's arm was as steady as his eyes were cold.

Annoyed, Kate bit her lower lip. The boss did not seem willing to make it easy today. "No deal then, I guess?" she said, standing up slowly to go back into the kitchen with the intention to prepare herself a light breakfast. "Okay, you win. I'm not fit for duty right now, and I'll go see your doctor first thing this morning. Now put your gun down you're making me nervous, and my day sucks enough already," she said, matching the curt tone, and dark glance.

In front of her, Jack shook his head, but drew back his PPK. "We're leaving in twenty."

As Kate was pouring milk in her cereals with a sigh of relief, Jack put a small bottle of painkillers on the counter.

"In moderation only," he warned, before moving back to the desk.

oOo

_MI6..._ Bruce frowned, perplexed as he removed the ear piece, and put all his equipment back into his backpack.

Yesterday evening he had not been able to identify the man who had came to Kate's help, but a few seconds ago, when the man had turned his head toward the window, he had clearly recognized Jack Andrews, the MI6 operative who had saved him and Kate six years ago in the forest at the border between Tibet and the Chinese province of Sichuan.

For a moment, Bruce felt his heart rhythm increasing as the memory of the illegal meeting between his group of thieves and the triad emissary resurfaced in a blurry haze. Everything had happened so fast. One moment it was going smoothly, everybody seemed relaxed, the next he was in hell, bullets slicing the air around him. If it had not been for the triad kid who was watching the door, he would have died.

Bruce smiled to himself. Kate had well hidden her identity. Like yesterday night.

Troubled by the revelation, Bruce quickly joined back his Mitsubishi coupé to go back to the Tower in time for the board meeting. What had happened back then belonged to the past. He had to focus on the present. Tonight, the Batman would pay Kate an unexpected visit.


	4. Ch 3

**Gotham City - Wayne Tower  
**

**July 24, 2009 - 3:55 pm**

* * *

An unusual silence woke Bruce up.

Disoriented, not knowing where he was nor the time of the day, he lifted tired eyes, and waited for his surroundings to come into focus.

_The boardroom._

Bruce sighed, and straightened on his seat. Damn... He was alone. How had he not noticed the people leaving the room? Had they tip toed out not to wake him up or what? Yawning, he slowly got up and let his steps guiding him towards Fox's office, trying his best to fight a sleep induced lethargic state along his way.

Still feeling a bit numb, he knocked on Lucius's office door a few minutes later and entered.

The CEO raised his head from a financial report and smiled, "One minute twenty two. You beat your previous record by six seconds, Mr. Wayne."

Bruce sat down in the black leather armchair in front of Lucius' desk with an appreciative pout. "Who won this time?" he asked, still uncertain how he was feeling about the fact that the board members were betting on how fast he would fall asleep. Well, at least it showed that they had finally adopted him despite the severe bashing the Tabloids had done two years ago, and that sprang again from time to time to boost their declining sells.

"Hamilton," Lucius chuckled.

Bruce winced, "Well... good for him. But tell me, it's quite unusual for you to arrive late. Nothing's wrong I hope," he asked, remembering with dread that the board members were getting impatient, and had tried to convince him about taking Lucius' place for once.

"Oh, no. Don't worry. Just a kid from the neighborhood who met some trouble, and as her uncle is long time friend, I patched her back together to spare them a long waiting time at the emergency room. Speaking of reckless kids, why is your arm in a brace again?"

Bruce winced. "Oh, I fell from a tree. But let's get back to business would you? I wondered if you would know anything about a pharmaceutical company named CamTech," Bruce asked. Hicks was employed there as a senior chemist, and, strangely enough, the company's name felt familiar.

As Lucius confirmed a second later. "Even if you didn't pay attention during last week's meetings, you should know almost as much about them as I, Mr. Wayne."

"How so?" Bruce replied, uncertain how to take the reproach due to the familiar, mischievous gleam shimmering in Fox's eyes.

"Maybe because you're probably the main reason why their business is working so well nowadays," Fox explained, obviously finding a certain joy into the discussion. "Painkillers!" he added at Bruce's perplexed glance.

Bruce relaxed. "Oh yeah... I have a handful of those bitter bugs in my medicine cabinet."

"If you behaved like everybody and took them with a glass of water, I'm sure you would find them perfectly fine!"

The allusion to chew painkillers dry made Bruce wince.

"Ah, well, they activate faster that way. But what did I miss during last week's meetings?"

"The other reason why you should know about CamTech is that we're in the process of acquiring it. It's a moderate sized company of a few hundred employees, specialized in R and D of new pain medication made from Amazonian pharmacopeia. They rely on the production of generics to fund their research, which assures them a continuous and stable income, making them quite a safe investment for Wayne Industries. But if you really want to learn more about them, I suggest you accompany me to the gala tomorrow evening."

Bruce sighed. "And drink champagne in a room crowded with people speaking a foreign language?"

"It's been a long time since you've made a public appearance, and it would be for a noble cause."

"Which is?"

"Arthritis."

"Umm... at least that's one I probably won't have to deal with personally," Bruce replied, thinking out loud.

A brief silence fell.

Straightening in his chair, Fox then asked him, "Are there any other companies I should inform you about, sir?"

Bruce shook his head. "Nope. Is the kid all right?" he asked, guessing the kid's identity, and wondering if the name he had heard sooner could be a coincidence.

He had since long learned to read between the lines, especially after these last four years during which Alfred had revealed some _unexpected_ abilities and experiences for a butler from the International Butler Academy. Like the one to burn a forest to capture a criminal.

Anyway, he had chosen not to press the matter, and let his old friend tell him the real reason why his father had employed him a few months before his birth when he would be ready.

And there was Lucius. A genius who was, as far as he knew, Alfred's only friend.

After the League of Shadows terrorist attack on the city, Alfred had revealed to him that Lucius had known his father during his time at the university where Wayne Enterprises' CEO was completing his MD and an Engineer Bachelor's degree at the same time. A few years later, his father had offered Lucius a position in Wayne Enterprises, where he had done his MBA.

The thought of Lucius being his father room mate had soothed him at some point. Especially after all his family's memories had been burnt down with the manor, retrieving some pictures of the student's years of his father had brought him just enough peace not to drown completely in his ire.

A genius who had saved his life many times when he came back too injured for Alfred to handle alone.

"The kid? Oh, yes. Well, with a little rest, she will be."

Bruce nodded, happy to know that Kate was not hurt too badly. "Good. Glad to hear it. So no arriving late at board meetings again, and never missing one either, right?"

"Mr. Wayne, you know how dedicated I am to your company," Lucius said, feigning to be outraged. "Although it might be an interesting idea to dig, let's say, in case you don't follow doctor's advices to take care of yourself," he chuckled.

The last comment made Bruce raising his eyebrows in alarm. Sloppy topic. "Uh... right. I'd better go back to my office. Still have some reports to read before heading back home. See you, Lucius," he said before flying away.

However, when Bruce crossed his secretary's cold eyes a few seconds later, he changed his mind. Now, he wanted to go back to the manor's cave to hack a few servers before planning tonight's surveillance.


	5. Ch 4

**Gotham City - Stevensburg's District  
**

**July 24, 2009 - 8:55 pm**

* * *

Sitting in the darkness of their mobile unit's cabin, Kate stared at the _no signal_ written on the right, bottom corner of the screen, fighting not to fall asleep.

A blip sounded, and a blurry and dark image of Hicks's lounge appeared.

"Thank God..." Kate sighed, grateful for the peak of adrenaline that woke her up.

After a few clicks, a clearer image in tones of green appeared.

"Camera one working; got a nice image of a sofa," Kate said with a satisfied smirk. "Switching to thermal readings."

The screen became darker again, but on its center Jack appeared, a red, orange and yellow shape.

"Hell..." Kate smirked, "The whole screen turned yellow! Are you sure you passed the last physical?"

A thin, yellow prominent extremity appeared at the end of Jack's arm.

Kate chuckled. "Thermal reading's working perfectly, checking on the other cameras now," she said before frowning. "Hold on a second. There's a red light on the front street. Damn!" she muttered. On the screen set on the building's front street a Prius had just stopped.

Kate swore when she watched Hicks' large body extricating himself from the passenger side. "Get the hell out of there! Target is coming back," she warned.

"How come? Where's his cell phone, damn it?" Jack demanded, not hiding his irritation.

"Don't understand more than you. It's still in the north. Must have forgotten it there!" Katherine replied, on the edge of feeling insulted by his reproachful tone.

"Bloody bugger! Moving to the fire exit."

But at that instant, another blip sounded.

"Hold on! Red light just appeared on this one also!" Kate cried out when the movement alarm of the camera watching out the rear alley came on, although she could not see much. She was about to switch from thermal reading to night vision when all the screens suddenly shut down.

"What the hell is going on?" Katherine muttered, feeling her mouth drying and fear twisting her guts. With a moan she extracted herself from the chair and retrieved a pair of night vision binoculars from her bag.

"Target on the landing. Going back for a frontal view window," Jack said.

Kate had grabbed the back door's handle when several blips sounded all at once, signaling that the system had come back online. Stopping her movement, Kate was turning her gaze toward the screens when a loud explosion reverberated.


	6. Ch 5

**Gotham City - Wayne Manor  
**

**July 24, 2009 - 9:01 pm**

* * *

In obedience to an old routine, Alfred let his feet guide him to the study. After closing the sculpted wooden double door behind him, he automatically turned on the lamp on the table beside the armchair, sat down, and turned on the TV to watch the news.

In itself, it was nothing out of the ordinary. Many people did exactly the same thing at the same time. Except for him. Relieving his tired legs at this hour had a different result – more unusual, less pleasant, and that ordinary people hopefully did not share with him.

As soon as the bluish light of the GCN background set came on, the muscles of his abdomen started to clench tighter and tighter into a painful knot.

Always the same routine, raising the same feelings: fear, anger, despair, acceptance.

_He's out again._

Anxious, he read the news feed at the bottom of the screen. A tornado had hit St. Louis, killing eleven people; two city employees were missing while working in a sewer this morning. Due to the rain, the rescue operation was progressing slowly, and the syndicate was calling for a strike. The next news feed was about the forest fires raging in Europe.

_International events,_ Alfred sighed, feeling his jaw relaxing.

Until the young female journalist in charge of maintaining the nightly audience awake with her good looks applied a sudden tension to his nerves.

_"We've just been informed that a terrible explosion has occurred in Gotham's Stevensburg's district. It seems that a residential building exploded. It's too soon to know the cause of the explosion, but witnesses at the scene say they saw Batman fleeing the scene with a hostage. Police patrols are pursuing him as we speak..."_

Alfred suddenly straightened in his seat, both hands grabbing the arms of the chair. Holding his breath, he felt his eyes widening out of fear as an aerial view of the inferno appeared.

The cell phone he kept on him vibrated.

_Thank God!_ he sighed.

"Yes, Master Wayne?"

"Alfred, get out some ice packs!" the familiar harsh voice said.

Relieved, he acknowledged right away and walked to the piano to trigger the concealed opening in the library.

Once in the cave, he headed toward the medical room to get everything ready. That Bruce admitted he was in need of help was worrying by itself. A few minutes later he walked back into the cave just as the deafening sound of the Tumbler's engines reverberated against the cave's wall.

Impassive to the sudden flock of bats that flew above him, Alfred climbed on the circular platform where the Tumbler immobilized. With a cautious but firm hand he then helped his young master to untangle himself from the pilot seat.

Bruce moaned of pain and once out Alfred noticed that he held his left arm close to his chest. Reassured to feel him steady on his feet, he sighed, "Let's go see the damage."

The boy was playing a dangerous game, keeping on ignoring his body's message that it had had enough of this ordeal. This wound should have healed a long time ago. Thinking that he was going to either need a big needle or to have a heavy hand with the anesthetic, Alfred was passing by the elevator leading to the study when he felt that something was wrong. He stopped and looked back.

"Master Wayne?" he asked, worried to see Bruce leaning against the tumbler's hood, his gaze on the ground.

But when his question received no answer, alarmed, Alfred walked back to him. Anxious to find a more serious injury, he started to remove the armor plate by plate. But Bruce freed himself with a gentle movement.

"I'm fine, Alfred," he whispered, straightening with effort before heading toward the computer room.

Alfred felt his heart tighten. The tremor in Bruce's whisper told him that someone had died tonight. The worst wound. The one that, in order to heal, would push his young master to add a brick to his wall. The wall that protected the joyful boy he had once been.

Sadness flooding his heart, Alfred joined Bruce in the room. Without surprise he found him sitting in front of the computers, already back into _Batman_ mode. Had he only left this mode since Rachel's death? Alfred wondered, feeling the weight of his young master's sorrow filling the room. Freezing it.

While the sound of Bruce's fingers hitting the keyboard rang out, Alfred opened the small freezer and retrieved two ice packs. As gently as possible he put one of them on his wounded shoulder and the other on a huge hematoma on his right lower side. What had hit him to develop such an angry looking bruise? he wondered, shuddering at the fact that Bruce had not flinched. Such a level of resistance to pain constricted his heart further.

"I'll be in the kitchen, if you need anything, Master Wayne," he said, moving back toward the door. As Bruce was not there anymore, and his alter ego was not a talkative nature, he would have to wait until the next morning to know what had really happened tonight.

"Alfred?"

Surprised, the old butler stopped on the door step, turned his head, and saw Bruce's wide opened eyes staring at him with a fragility that took his breath away.

"I... Thank you. I don't know what I would do without you..."

His teeth clenched by emotion, Alfred bowed his head and swallowed his saliva with difficulty.

"You're welcome, Master Wayne," he replied, leaving him alone to collect himself.

oOo

Two hours later, Bruce let out a long sigh of exhaustion. He rubbed his eyes and closed them for a moment to rest, but his mind reenacted the violent outcome of Hicks's watch, shattering all hope to find his sleep tonight.

He had just landed on the flat's rear balcony when the building had exploded. The blow had sent him flying into the facade of the building across the alley and bouncing against trash containers.

By the time he had managed to control the searing pain from his head, back and shoulder, people were running, screaming out through the fire exits. But amongst them, someone was fighting to move in the opposite direction. Recognizing Kate's thin silhouette, he had rushed after her to the second floor. There weren't a lot of reasons which could explain such a risk-taking.

Jack must have been in Hicks's flat when it had exploded.

A blip rang out, and Bruce raised his eyes. On screen, a crown standing between a lion and a unicorn on their rear legs appeared to the right of the acronym of the British Secret Intelligence Service. Finding a way to hack the well protected server in all safety had taken him most of his afternoon, and evening. But finally, he had succeeded.

Quickly, he entered in the personal database and typed his research.

Half an hour later Bruce sighed and put down Kate's printed file on the desk on top of a pile of papers.

She had been recruited less than one year after their encounter. After moving from one assignment to another in different places of the world, she had asked to be transferred to the most secluded spot on Earth: Kathmandu. In her report, the psychologist had written that it was out of loyalty to Jack Andrews, who had served with her father in the SAS. As she needed a break after her last mission in Afghanistan, a mission that had turned pretty badly when she had fallen between enemies' hands with a group of occidental journalists, managing to escape during a transfer to a remote village several weeks later, she had been for two years assigned as the Ambassador's personal bodyguard, working at the Embassy as his personal assistant.

Bruce exhaled slowly, and ran a nervous hand through his hair.

Though an apparent desk job could look like a good break indeed after months of working in a war zone, for him the Himalayans were all but peaceful mountains. The thought that the League of Shadows could be active again filled him with dread.

What could have happened there to set the MI6 on alert and to lead them here in Gotham?

Bruce suddenly straightened, hit by a memory.

Alfred was receiving the international press every morning since forever, and about three months ago he clearly remembered seeing him turning pale while reading the English edition of the Herald Tribune. When he had asked if everything was all right, the old man had let out a sad sigh before telling him that life had caught up to one of his oldest friends.

Bruce's fingers hit the keyboard quickly, and a moment later the black and white picture of a thin, elegant old man with an aristocratic appearance appeared on screen.

_"Ambassador Sir Anthony Edwards found dead in his office at Kathmandu Embassy" _

Bruce quickly scanned the two column article and frowned. His death was natural, or so it seemed.

Dying of a heart attack at eighty-two was not uncommon. But why then was his bodyguard along with the Head of Section there investigating? And how come Kate's file was not up-to-date?

All his morning doubts about Batman's role shattered, Bruce stood up and slipped on his armor again. Even if this wasn't the best time, he had to talk to her. He had to know if the League of Shadows was back.

Fifteen minutes later the Tumbler's low-pitched engine stopped in the muddy ground of the construction site near Kate's building.

With his grappling gun, Batman heaved himself up onto the roof and let himself fall down without a sound on the narrow balcony.

The apartment was plunged in darkness, but the curtain was blocking the view. Tense, he knocked once on the window. Getting no answer, he forced the door lock and opened it.

Cautious, he cast a look inside, half expecting to find himself face to face with the barrel of a gun. But it did not happen, and, releasing his breath, he stepped in.

Silent, he turned around a pile of metallic boxes that stood in the middle of the living-room and headed toward the only bedroom. The door creaked, and he cast a look inside. With the exception of a small mattress directly on the ground, there was no one there. Cautious, he checked the built-in wardrobe. It was empty. Batman sighed. He had arrived too late.

Disappointed, he returned into the small corridor and headed toward the kitchen. A grey mass on the counter caught his eyes, contrasting with the otherwise perfect order. He stepped toward it, deactivating the sonar to identify the object. He frowned. It was a med kit with traces of fresh blood on the handle.

A cold shudder ran down his spine as worry grasped him. He had not taken the time to check if she was injured when he had left her in a dark street. A police patrol had appeared at the end of the alley behind the burning building, forcing him to fly away quickly.

At least he had the confirmation that she had made it back to her base. But where was she now?

_Where would you go in such a situation?_ he wondered. His gaze turned back toward the balcony and he felt an urge to get out, to breathe some fresh air to cope with... hell.

Hoping that she would have headed toward the nearby docks, he activated again his sonar and walked out.

Shortly after, Batman stood on top of a six containers high pack, concealed by a moonless night.

A few bums were wandering here and there; some were sleeping on the ground next to drenched cardboard boxes. In the distance a police patrol was driving away. But there was no sign of Kate's lonely silhouette.

A cold, heavy weight fell on his guts as he moved to check the piers, more exposed to the wind and where he appreciated the view on the ocean. He stayed there for a while, captivated by the ghost shadow of the cargo on which he had illegally embarked on more than a decade ago sailing away. Slowly the horizon started to appear in shades of blue and orange.

With a sigh of complete exhaustion, Batman activated the Tumbler's autopilot to merge on his signal, and before climbing into the cabin, he cast a last, sad glance at the ocean. With hindsight, it had probably been his better days.


	7. Ch 6

**Gotham City - 16th Police District Station**

**July 25, 2009 - 7:00 am**

* * *

"WAKE UP JUNKIES! Time to find yourself an honest work you lazy bunch of shit!"

"Fuck ya!"

At the shouts, Kate's eyes sprung suddenly open. The crude light sent a thousand sharp needles piercing her brain, and she closed her eyelids tight to stop the pain. But the erratic beating of her temples magnified her headache. Nauseous, she clenched her teeth and tried to slow down her breathing.

Once she was sure she was not going to puke, she slowly opened her eyes again and raised her elbow to cast a glance at her surroundings.

_An over-crowded cell?_ She frowned just as a dizzy spell hit her and forced her to lie back.

Both hands clinging to the dingy mattress, Kate took a deep breath, and winced at the disgusting smell that came from her clothes.

What the bloody hell had happened to her?

"I said OUT! NOW!" the cop vociferated, banging his club against the bars. The clacking metal increased her headache a painful notch.

"Don't put ya greasy hands on me, ya bastard!"

Kate cast a look at the woman on her left and frowned. Wearing a bright pink skirt and a bra, her outfit didn't hide much of her podgy anatomy, nor her occupation.

_Gruesome company..._ she shuddered, throwing her numb legs on the concrete ground while trying to remember what had happened last evening that could have cause her to end up here.

Feeling restless, unable to stop walking in circles around the metallic boxes, she had gone out to take some fresh air on the docks, a bottle of beer in hand... but after that? Nothing.

Boots appeared within Kate's line of vision.

Lifting her head, she met with a prominent abdomen; impatient, the sergeant was playing with his club at an inch from her forehead.

"A piece of friendly advice, baby doll. Stick to milk next time," he sniggered.

Too exhausted to care about the insult, Kate clenched her jaw and slowly stood up. Her ribcage protested, sending a burning pain searing in her chest. For now this was the least of her problems. If her misadventure came to London's ears, she could as well pack for the Falklands.

Following the movement, Kate staggered with the dozen others toward the front desk, half expecting to see a special branch agent from Gotham's embassy waiting for her. For a brief moment her eyes scanned the place for options. A tired chuckle escaped her lips. Using the backdoor of a police station in order to fly away was probably the idea most often envisaged here; it was the least probable too.

Kate walked toward the counter and gave the sticker that had been put on her sleeve to the police woman. The woman briefly turned away, grasped the small basket with the corresponding number on a shelf, and, barely looking at her, emptied it in front of her.

"Check and sign this," she said, sliding a form and a pen on the counter.

Kate cast a quick glance on the release statement and frowned at the reason of her arrest. Drunk? After one bottle of beer? How come? Well that explained the headache, she thought, casting a suspicious glance at the bottle of painkillers on the counter next to her wallet and keys.

Embarrassed, Kate quickly signed the form, put her belongings into the pockets of her jeans, and turned to go. A coffee and a shower was all she needed to feel human again.

A few hours later, Katherine stepped out of a taxi at a short distance from Hicks's building. A slight wind blew, carrying ashes and irritating gases into the air. Kate deadened a cough into her elbow as she walked up the street toward the crowd of curious onlookers that had gathered in the middle of the street just outside of a security perimeter delimited by a yellow security cordon.

Not quite sure what she was doing here, Kate made her way inside the pack, her jaw tight, casting a look at the others around her. Eyes wide with shock, a handkerchief or a light scarf covering their mouth and nose, people were staring silently at the disaster. Some others whispered as if afraid that speaking out loud would make things worse.

Catching sight of a reporter, Kate stopped her course, stepped away as to not get caught into the camera's field of vision and stopped next to a tall man with a black cap on his head and a grey scarf hiding his lower face. Protected from the all-seeing eye of the media, Kate turned her gaze toward the charred framework. Her heart missed a beat.

The five floored wooden structure was reduced to a mountain of smoking debris.

German shepherds were searching the site with their masters, ears dropped. Firemen were clearing the site with slow, weary movements. Nobody there had his heart in his work. Who could survive to such an inferno?

_One more empty casket, _Kate shuddered, clenching her teeth as she knew that she had to warn London.

Anger spread into her veins like a fire.

_And say what? The Southern Asia Section's director is dead, his body burnt to ashes, and I haven't got a fucking idea why? _

Kate snatched her eyes away from the building and took a deep breath to control her rage, admonishing herself to stay focused.

She had to get back to the van. By the time Batman had extracted her from the building, it had been caught in the fire perimeter, and she had unwillingly left it there.

Hands buried in her jeans pockets and absent eyes on the ground, Kate walked away toward the alley behind Hicks's building.

It had not been an accident. It couldn't be. Such coincidences did not occur! The whole building must have been trapped to cause such damage, although why someone would use such a method to eliminate a single man, she did not understand. There were easier and more discreet ways to kill someone. Maybe it was a warning to keep other _associates_ in line?

Kate frowned as a memory emerged through the theories that bustled into her head. While they were waiting for Hicks two nights ago, the Scarecrow had told her that although the man was a genius in biochemistry, he was a poor businessman. To his mind, Hicks was the innocent puppet of a group of chemical arms dealers that had had the bad luck to have him as roommate at the university.

Although Kate did not share his views, Hicks was to her mind as dangerous a criminal as a serial killer, the fact that the Scarecrow had described him as naïve, egocentric, and over-confident led her to think that he could have left some clues on his illegal activities and partners in crime at his work office.

Kate climbed into the van, quickly closed its door and moved to the rear cabin to grab her bag.

Feeling the state of exhaustion that had lingered since her awakening vanishing Kate cast a quick glance at her watch. She had three hours to get ready in time for the CamTech gala.


	8. Ch 7

**Gotham City - CamTech Headquarters**

**July 25, 2009 - 6:47 pm**

* * *

The Industrial Zone located on the southern outskirts of Sheal was serene. A soft and welcomed breeze was cooling its lifeless streets, with the exception of its northeast corner where a continuous flow of cars arrived, creating a relentless waltz smoothly held by a valet service.

A taxi stopped in front of the main entrance. The door opened, and Kate got out, cast a sharp glance around her, and melted with the other guests, guided toward the main entrance by Vivaldi's Concerto "La Primavera" third movement. The joyous notes escaped through the opened doors of the two-floor building, rising into the night.

As Kate waited in line to register at the front security desk, she took advantage of the slow pace to study her surroundings. With some relief she noticed that the two guards on either side of the doors were armed with taser guns, indicating that they were more expecting to have to control a drunken guest than face a real threat.

"Miss Hawkins from the Herald Tribune," she said to the hostess standing behind an oblong table.

The young woman cast a look at the white cards arranged on the dark green cloth, picked one in the lower right corner, and held it to Kate with a smile.

"Here, Miss Hawkins. Just stay on the red carpet; it will lead you to the main conference room."

Kate nodded politely, hung the pass around her neck, and followed the other guests inside a large glass-roofed agora with a fountain at its center. A row of microwaves standing at the back of the place indicated that it was used as a cafeteria at noon. However, for the necessity of the evening, the oblong tables had been re-arranged in a long suite on which flutes of champagne and appetizers were served by waiters.

Still suffering from a latent headache, Kate continued to walk toward two large double door and briefly stopped in front of a large black and white picture of Adam Hicks standing on a small round table.

Feeling her chest tighten, she approached and cast a glance at a condolences book.

Curious to know who would have signed it first and how, she delicately found the first page.

_To my fellow companion of before the first hour. CamTech will never be the same without you.  
Rest in peace my dear friend, Dr. I. Nimanec._

_Your talent in biochemistry will never be equaled. We'll so deeply miss you, my friend! _

_Yours, Pamela Lilian Isley. _

Kate frowned, a bit surprised that Hicks had been a long time collaborator of the company's director. Until now, she had imagined that the man was of no importance. Although under the circumstances, people usually wrote something nice. Maybe this was the just the case today.

Keeping nonetheless this new perspective in mind, Kate put the book back to the page where she had found it and stepped into the conference room.

A waiter stopped in front of her and offered a flute of champagne. She took one, and, forcing herself to harbor a relaxed smile, she moved forward, plunging body and soul in the general hubbub with a single objective in mind. Collecting intel.

A journalist was, by nature, curious, and asking questions about Hicks tonight would not raise too much suspicion. Although if it did, that could mean that she had put her finger on something.

Kate sighed of relief. For the first time of the day, she was feeling in control. Whatever the outcome of her evening, she would learn something.

However, as she made her way through the crowd, listening to the conversations, Kate started to feel sick to her stomach; their mouths full of appetizers, the guests were socializing with each other by imagining Hicks's last moments.

Killed on the spot by the explosion, killed by the toxic fumes then burnt, trapped in his room and burnt alive... the scenarios differed, the outcome remained unchanged.

Kate clenched her teeth to control her rage. How disturbing it was that normal people could so easily talk about death while the thought made her feel nauseated.

Silently grumbling, she stopped in front of a scientific poster and took a few deep breaths to put her nerves back under control.

"Interested in painkillers?" a voice suddenly said behind her.

Not having felt anyone approaching her, Kate turned more quickly than she would have liked and could not completely hide a wince of pain when her wounded ribs protested at the sudden movement.

Mentally cursing against her nervousness, she stared at the man who had just spoken with a certain annoyance. She had no time right now to socialize.

A shudder ran down her spine.

In a black tuxedo, an handsome man in his mid thirties was staring at her with a slight smile on his face, and something like victory gleaming in his grey eyes, making her feel like an open book. Upset by her sudden weakness, she briefly averted her eyes to cast a glance at the card around his neck. Bruce Wayne. Bruce?

_Bloody hell! _she silently swore as the memory of a cold day in Lhasa resurfaced.


	9. Ch 8

**Tibet - Lhasa **

**March 24, 2003 - 4:29 pm**

* * *

The bus from Kathmandu stopped in a squealing jolt.

The forty tourists, mostly Chinese at the exception of a few Nepalese and occidentals, sighed of relief and stood up, happy to stretch their numbed members. On the last row, Kate stirred out of sleep, and yawned. She felt slightly sick because of a lingering odor of gas, and was still under the effect of a seven hours jetlag, having left Bruxelles only two days ago.

Relieved to have finally reached her destination, she raised her arms to get her backpack from the luggage compartment above her head and moved forward, catching up with the packed group formed by the other passengers.

A freezing wind blew, and the sun light, reverberating on the white stones covering the ground of the bus station made her squint.

Welcoming the elements, Kate raised the collar of her vest, and stepped out of the over-warmed bus smelling of gas.

Twenty minutes later, chilled to the bones, she entered a covered food market, relieved to escape the strong gust for a brief moment. She needed to make some provisions before heading toward one of the Youth hostels for the night, and find someone to share a few drinks so she could measure the beat of the city. The young, worldwide travelers that came here to discover the ancestral Tibetan city always knew more than the touristic guides about a place.

She was looking at the first stall when someone bumped into her back. Moving aside, Kate saw a child running away and frowned of annoyance.

"ZÉI! ZÉI!"

Kate turned her gaze to her right and saw a bulky farmer running after him.

Unbalanced, the kid cast a frightened glance over his shoulder and could not avoid bumping into someone else. As he crashed on the ground, an apple fell from his hands and rolled away.

A vicious smile lightened the farmer's face as he raised a podgy but no doubt muscular arm toward the child.

Scared for him, Kate moved forward to intervene, but she did not have to when a man suddenly grasped the farmer's arm in mid air.

She let out a relieved sigh and cast a glance at the man who had also chosen to step in. With his brown hair and beard he looked like a backpacker wandering the world.

"How much? Rúhé?" he said.

Kate raised a curious eyebrow. Although he seemed serene, there was a coldness in his voice that told not to mess with him. Finding the mix interesting, she watched the farmer staring at him as if he were assessing his chances.

_Ten dollars on the tourist,_ Kate thought, almost wishing for the Tibetan to try his chance.

But sadly, the farmer agreed with her and yielded when the man placed a bill in his hand. Grumbling, he sent the kid a last dark look, a silent threat to not cross his path again, and turned to go.

Not daring to move until now, the latter got up and ran away in the other direction under his savior's sad expression.

While the market was filled again with the usual hubbub as if nothing had happened, intrigued, Kate tried to catch a sight of the occidental. This guy probably fell under the category 'I know all the places where one should go or not here'.

However, against all odds, he had vanished.


	10. Ch 9

**Gotham City - CamTech Headquarters**

**July 25, 2009 - 7:32 pm**

* * *

Bruce stared at Kate, aware that her frozen glance indicated that her mind had suddenly yanked her into the past.

"Gotham's as long a shot from London than Lhasa," he said, gently helping her to shift back to the present. Hell! Even with the make-up, she looked drained.

"Well... when did I say I called London home?" she replied with a smirk, "It feels strange to see you in a businessman suit."

"Right you are though, a businessman I am," he replied, catching a sudden sparkle of life in her eyes. A game had just started. Who would discover the other first? He was sure she still believed that he was CIA. "And er... _a_ _journalist_ you are?"

"Right you are," she replied with a very serious tone.

Bruce nodded, and bit his lips not to smile. "May I ask what brings you among us tonight?"

Kate chuckled slightly. "Exceptionally, you can. I'm here to get information about debilitating side effects of painkillers when mixed with alcohol. Would you know something about this, by any chance?"

Bruce winced.

"I've always been told not to mix them, as I'm sure you've been, too. But if you really want to further pursue this line of inquiry, I think I have the perfect man for you! Come with me," he asked, offering her his arm.

Kate tilted her head, and after a few seconds, she took his arm, saying, "Why not?"

As they slowly made their way in the crowd, Bruce frowned, "What happened to your hand?"

"Oh, that? Nothing. I scratched myself while I made some repairs on my bike this morning. So how's business going?" she asked, changing the subject.

Bruce raised his eyebrows. "Hmm, as good as possible. I think."

"You think? You surprise me, you know."

"Good evening, Mr. Wayne!" a man in a small group of people cut.

"How so?" Bruce asked to Kate, nodding politely to the man, wondering if he should know him or not.

"You didn't seem like one to let something escape one's control back in Lhasa, so why would you now?"

"You didn't seem to be the clumsy kind either," Bruce replied with a smirk. Damn... more and more heads were turning on their path, staring at them. Kate released his arm, obviously catching the jealous glance of a blond woman accompanying a group of businessmen.

"Well, things change in six years. Look at you! A tuxedo, no beard..." she said with a smile, though her eyes were coldly scanning the crowd.

"Longer hair, a dress, and even a bag," Bruce chuckled and lowered his head, "stilettos, too."

"An adapted gear for tonight," she whispered.

"A charming one if I may say."

"By far the most uncomfortable one," she replied just as a hand appeared in front of them.

Bruce raised his eye toward the owner and mentally swore.

_Damn. Investors... _

Trapped, he exchanged a few words with the two men while keeping an eye on Kate who had turned her heels. Not willing to let her slip away, he seized her by the waist, and introduced her. A move she did not seem to appreciate, according to the stiletto she dug in his left foot. Hiding a wince of pain under a slight cough, he put an end to the formalities, and dragging her away, he said, "Sorry. Businessman's obligations."

"Oh, such a hard life, dating wonderful mannequins, playing golf, going in business trips all around the world, spying on Wall Street dissidents..."

Bruce chuckled, especially at the last statement. Now she was thinking that he was working for the IRS, and he would not do anything to let suggest otherwise. Playing spy was more appealing a game than his usual cover of dumb playboy. "Far from me the idea to complain about my fate," he said, catching sight of Lucius' back between two other men. Bankers again. "Lucius? Let me present you Miss Hawkins. She's working for the Herald Tribune in London."

When Wayne's CEO turned his head toward him, Bruce smiled, feeling a childish joy of victory.

If he was not working with Lucius everyday, he would probably have missed the flash of surprise. But he had seen it, as well as he had felt Kate's slight start. They had met each other.

"Miss Hawkins, a pleasure to meet you," Lucius said with a formal, polite smile.

"Mr. Fox, the pleasure's mine," Kate replied with a smile that seemed a bit tense to Bruce.

"What can interest a journalist from 'The Herald Tribune' in Gotham?" Lucius asked just as the President of CamTech approached them.

"The presentation is about to begin," the bald, tall man said, showing the stage with his arm while the light dimmed.

_Saved by the bell..._ Bruce chuckled internally, enjoining Kate to follow him toward the stage.

While Dr. Pamela Isley was taking place behind the lectern, a thirty foot wide screen slowly slid down from the ceiling, and an aerial view of the Rio Negro tortuous course appeared on it.

"Amazon, Earth's fragile lungs..." began the red-haired woman in the micro with a suave, pleasant voice.

"Should remind you of our last encounter. Snakes and spiders under every stone," Bruce said in Kate's ear, his voice still covered by the chattering of the people around them.

"And killers behind every trunk and liana," Kate whispered.

"Hm...a little action, just enough to not get bored. You dealt with it quite efficiently if I remember."

"If it hadn't been for Jack, we would be both hummus right now so forgive me for not sharing your enthusiasm," Kate replied, a bit harsher than necessary.

Bruce shuddered when he caught a flash of anger in her eyes, and mentally slapped himself for it. Reminding her of Jack's death right now was something he could have have the tact to avoid.

Embarrassed, he cast Kate another look.

Jaws clenched, she was now focused on the presentation telling CamTech's founders's adventure in the Amazon Rainforest. Or at least, she seemed to be focused on it. She was in CamTech for a reason, probably to dig on Hicks, maybe to search his office and find out if he had accomplices on his work place. If that was the case, the darkness of the room was a good opportunity to sneak out, or at least, to escape his grasp.

A few minutes later, Bruce sighed, having the confirmation of his assumptions when he felt Kate trying to slip away.

"Wait," he whispered in her ear, grasping her waist more tightly.

Kate sent him a dark glance, that he returned. After a few seconds, she sighed of annoyance, and turned her attention back on the screen.

Ten long minutes later the full lights came on, and a thunderous applause burst. On the stage, Pamela Isley shook her Director's hand, eyes shining with tears and a sad smile on her face.

"Ladies and gentlemen, we'll now go for the attraction tour in our state of the art facility! Please, follow us," Dr. Nimanec said, attracting the attention on him to let her collaborator put her nerves under control.

Putting a smile on his face, Bruce tapped Lucius' shoulder and silently eyed him to occupy Kate for an instant. Lucius nodded, and he walked toward the stage to offer his hand to Pamela Isley, helping her to get down safely from the stage.

"Miss Isley, your presentation was affecting," he told her with his usual playboy mask while the crowd began to move toward the exits.

"Thank you, Mr. Wayne. It's nice of you. I must say that I didn't believe I'd be able to do it under the circumstances. But business is business, and Ivan convinced me that Adam would not have wanted us to cancel tonight. He had worked so hard for our success."

"You did him a great favor, believe me. It was perfect," Bruce lied. Not that her words about her deceased colleague had not been appropriate, what was making his teeth grinding was the fact that no company could nowadays allowed to cancel a public relations event, no matter how decent it would have been after the tragic death of one of their employees.

"Please, Pamela, it's your day to lead the show," Dr. Nimanec cut, enjoining his colleague to move toward of the conference room's exit, "Mr. Wayne, will you do us the pleasure to join us on the front?" he asked, though Bruce could read in the man's eyes that he would prefer him far away. That must be because he had slept through the whole meeting in his presence. That or because of the way Isley was looking at him. A bit of both.

"I'll join you in an instant," Bruce replied, still smiling as he tried to catch sight of Lucius and Kate in the crowd.

Slowly, he made his way toward them.

"… surely someone of your importance knows how ingenious we journalists can be to collect the information we need for our articles," Kate said.

"Ingenious. That was exactly the word I was looking for," Lucius chuckled. "And what was the topic of your article back then?" he asked just as Bruce reached them.

"Kate was working, if my memory is correct, on finding the herbal potion that the Tibetan monks would have used to defeat the Chinese army in the early eighteenth century," he intervened with a smirk.

Fox raised his eyebrows. "Hence your interest in plant medication. And did you find something?"

Kate stammered. "Er... not ex-" but he cut, "Against the Chi-" Bruce stopped and bit his lip as the heel of her stiletto stabbed his foot again.

"Unfortunately," Kate said, "the monk who told me about this potion had also warned about potential _lethal_ secondary effects and actually _died _himself shortly after. I never encountered someone else ready to confide me the secret ingredient, so I returned home empty-handed and suffered the wrath of my editor."

Bruce bit his lip again, this time not to chuckle at the death threat. According to her file, she might be a good agent now, but six years ago in Lhasa, she had obviously not been trained on survival cooking.

"Oh! What a pity," Fox exclaimed, his eyes staring at them with a mischievous light burning in them.

"My sentiment exactly," Kate replied, taking Fox by the arm, and dragging him away, "So, Mr. Fox, tell me what it's like to be at the head of one of the most important companies in the world."

With a burning light in his gentleman's eyes, Bruce conceded the victory and let her escape.


	11. Ch 10

**Gotham City - CamTech Headquarters**

**July 25, 2009 - 9:53 pm**

* * *

Crammed into one of the tiny stalls in the ladies bathrooms, Kate shut her smartphone and put it back inside her bag with a frustrated sigh. The door giving access to the level two greenhouse where Hicks' office was was watched by three hidden cameras.

During their visit of the installations, the last smartphone coming out of the MI6 Research & Development Branch had recorded the magnetic fields emitted by the electrical circuits inside the walls, but the EMP generator that equipped it too was not powerful enough to take them all at the same time, and allowed her to open the door unnoticed.

That meant she had to get out and come back with a better plan.

Although the surge of activity that had reigned in the bathroom had ceased five minutes ago, a few late guests might still be there. She could still leave without raising too much suspicion, maybe pretending to have fallen sick to explain why she was still there. Maybe Bruce or Fox would be among the last one to leave. Both were in position to offer her a safe-conduct out of CamTech.

Damn... she had had enough trouble to escape their grasp. If they were indeed working for the CIA or the IRS, she could as well consider to take the first plane back to London.

Her fingers had just wrapped around the handle when the bathroom's main door opened. Someone came in, whistling a merry tune.

Cautious, Kate half-opened the door, cast a glance at the washstand, and smiled. Finally, she wouldn't have to come back. Everything she needed was less than a meter from her, offered on a cart.

Less than five minutes later, the level two access door slowly closed itself behind the blue and white uniform of a maintenance staff. The metallic lock resounded loud and clear in the empty hallway.

Katherine winced. All senses on alert, she stayed still for a moment, staring at the doors along the corridor. If one opened, there was nowhere to hide.

After a few seconds without any suspect movement, her breathing eased a bit. She then made her way toward a T-junction fifty feet further. Her boots squeaked against the polished floor.

_The hell with over-sanitized places! _she swore as she stared at the square and bulky shadows beyond the glass wall of a laboratory on her left.

Now tip-toeing, she resumed her way and turned her head to look at a door on the other side.

A pictogram that looked like a flower drawn by a preschool kid let her guess that a greenhouse was behind the wall.

At a foot from the junction, Katherine flattened against the laboratory wall and cast a quick look on both sides. Not a soul. Satisfied, she took on her right and started to explore the new corridor. Here, the bay windows were covered with large posters, photos of people, animals, and scientific articles.

She slowly approached the first door and saw a name written on it. She had found the offices.

Fifteen feet further, she briefly stopped in front of Isley's. When she had talked to her earlier this evening, her instinct had raised a flag. On stage, the woman had shed a few tears, but she had quickly put herself under control for the talk, and she had been all smiles for the rest of the evening. A happiness a bit forced, but under the circumstances, it was understandable. What was not on the other hand was the flash of anger she had seen in her green eyes when she had asked her about her office location.

Finally, she shook her head and resumed her path. She had to focus on Hicks first.

Two doors further she stopped again. Nervous, she threw a quick glance over her shoulder just to be sure that she was alone and took off the collection of keys from her belt. The third one opened the lock. Thrilled, she stepped in and silently closed the door behind her.

Feeling a bit safer, she retrieved her pen light from her bag, switched it on, and frowned.

_What a mess!_

The small office was filled with bookcases, each nearly overflowing with books, journals, and other documents; the L-unit desk was swallowed up by even more books and papers...

Trying not to bump into anything on her way, Katherine walked around the desk and stopped in front of an iMac. With a little luck she would find something useful on its hard drive.

A little less than ten minutes later she put back her smartphone and the cable she had used to connect it to the computer's USB port in her bag. Satisfied, she stood up. All that remained now was to remove herself from the place.

Tense, she walked to the window and switched the pen light off so as not to reveal her presence from the outside. Groping, she searched for the lock mechanism. Her pulse increased as she switched the pen light on again. The confirmation crashed on her a second later. She could not find any for the simple reason that there were none.

_Damn it! Kate swore, walking back to the door._

Her hand was on the handle when voices rang out in the corridor. Immediately identifying the crystalline, and low tones of Isley's and Nimanec's voices, Kate swore again and crouched behind the small bookcase near the door.

She looked at the greenish light face of her watch. Half an hour had slipped by since she had knocked out the maintenance guy. The probability that his absence might be noticed or for him to regain consciousness was increasing. She had to get out now. Pulling out the fire plug was beginning to sound like her only option now. In the chaos nobody would pay attention to a maintenance employee walking fast toward an emergency exit.

The door half-opened, She was going to walk out when the ground vibrated under the fall of a heavy object. Again, she quickly stepped back into the darkness of the office, wondering what the hell was going on. Seconds later Dr. Isley's voice could be heard calling for help. Medical help.

_Bloody hell! _

Kate's heart started to pound furiously in her chest. Aware that in a few minutes the place would crawl under security and emergency staff, she stepped out of Hicks's office.

Tip-toeing not to make her boots squeak, she covered the last ten meters to the end of the corridor as fast as possible. A door there was now her only viable exit.

In a hurry, she grasped the handle, but it did not move. Tensed, she tried the keys, deadening the clatter of the bunch in her other hand. None fit. She sent a very nervous glance over her shoulder as she retrieved her set of hex keys in her bag. After twenty seconds, a metallic snap sounded just as steps echoed in the distance.

"Doctor Isley?" cried a voice.

"I'm here! Please, hurry!" replied the woman, her voice strangled with panic.

From the corner of her eye, Katherine saw her stepping out of her office. Quickly, she opened the door, plunged into the darkness that reigned on the other side, and closed it silently.

Holding her breath, she rested a moment against the wall and tried to listened what was going on on the other side above the pounding of her heart.

Satisfied to hear no one approaching toward her position, Katherine took some deep breaths to calm down and winced. An acrid smell, a mix of damp earth and fertilizers filled the place. Wondering where she was, she got her pen light out of her pocket and frowned. She was in a narrow stairwell leading a floor up, although she did not remember seeing a third floor on the emergency evacuation plan.

However, having no choice but to move forward, she quickly climbed. Two dozen steps up she stopped in front of a door. Without surprise, the handle blocked when she turned it, and once more she worked to pick the lock.

Sixteen seconds later a suffocating atmosphere rushed out.

Deadening a cough into her sleeve, Katherine stepped back and caught the stair railing to keep her balance.

_How could someone work in such an environment? _she wondered as she entered what looked like another greenhouse.

The huge shadows of the luxurious plants a foot taller than her shone under the full moon's light. She was on the roof!

Katherine sighed, relieved at the easy exit offered to her.

Moving with caution, she cut herself a passage between the leaves that invaded the path between the benches. A mist of hot water suddenly sprayed on her, and the temperature increased noticeably. Looking up, Kate saw a suspended network of pipes four feet above her head.

She mentally cursed. The place was freaking the hell out of her, but it was either the plants or Muscle Man and his team of taser guys. To her mind, the choice was easy to make.

Not baring the temperature anymore, she removed the top of her suit and knotted the long sleeves around her waist before walking forward a nearby intersection. Kate winced. If the temperature was now a bit less uncomfortable, the sensation of the gooey leaves brushing against her exposed skin was disgusting. Curious, she briefly stopped to stare at one of the plants. Kate frowned. The leaves oozed a slimy liquid that was collected by a drip tray system that delivered it to small tanks at each end of bench. _What the hell were they doing here? _she wondered, perplexed. Pushed by instinct, Kate cut a small portion of the nearest plant and put it in her bag before resuming her way.

A few feet further she stopped at the junction and cast a look at the new alley. A satisfied smirk appeared on her lips. On her left there was a window, half opened.

Relieved, she immediately headed toward it but suddenly stopped on her way.

_What the hell is that? _she wondered, feeling her pulse running amok. For a brief moment, she was sure that the plant standing on a stool in front of the window was moving.

She closed her eyes, took a long breath, and looked again. The plant was now as still as the others.

_The wind, Kate! No need to panic like a little girl!_ she snubbed herself, nervously running fingers through her soaked hair.

Putting her nerves back under control, Kate covered the distance in a few steps, pushed the pot aside, and grabbed the crank-handle to open the window further. She was slipping out completely when she felt a sudden, burning pain on her left hand. Biting her lower lip to keep from crying, Kate quickly removed her hand from the window frame and jumped outside. Relieved, she looked up toward the moon, and, welcoming the coolness of the night on her face, she headed toward the edge of the roof.


	12. Ch 11

**Gotham City - Wayne Tower**

**July 26, 2009 - 11:03 am**

* * *

_"A series of disasters has broken out here at CamTech Pharmaceuticals. Two days after the violent death of one of their brightest researchers in an apartment fire, the president and founder, Doctor Ivan Nimanec, has died of a heart attack last evening, only a few hours after having sealed a staggering deal of twenty millions dollars with Wayne Enterprises. It is now on the shoulders of the young, brilliant Doctor Pamela Isley, a long-time collaborator of both deceased men, that the burden falls to guide the company during this painful crisis. Needless to add, the personnel is quite under the shock of what some have started to call the Curse of the Jaguar, a reference to a misadventure that happened to the company's founding trio while they were in Brazil a few years ago. Maggie Thomson for GCN, in live from CamTech Pharmaceuticals. To you, Paul!" _

_"Thank you, Maggie. Indeed, we can never stress enough about the negative effects of st-"_

Bruce turned off the TV set in front of him, stood up, and headed toward his favorite spot to brood, hands in his pants pockets.

"The man hadn't seemed particularly overstressed to me last evening," he said, looking at the street. He had left half an hour before the end, anticipating that Kate would find a way to break in Hicks' office one way or another. The coldness of her eyes as she had told – no, _warned_ him – not to intervene in her job this time had made him shudder.

But by the time he had come back, as Batman, an ambulance's and a police patrol's lights were coloring CamTech's front entrance in red and blue. The commotion on the parking lot had dissuaded him to come closer. Instead, he had called Gordon for intel.

The feeling of relief upon learning that it was for Nimanec still filled him with dread.

Sitting in the loveseat facing the TV set, Fox lifted perplexed eyes toward him.

"Neither to me," he replied, disturbed by the news of the sudden death. "A bit more nervous than usual, maybe... but yet in his element."

The phone rang out. Jerked away from gloomy thoughts, Bruce walked back to his desk to take the call.

The voice of his secretary crackled in his ear, and he pinched the bridge of his nose to fight a rising headache.

"Thank you, Miss Landsbury. Let her in, please."

A second later, the door opened on CamTech's acting president.

Bruce looked up and slightly bit his lower lip, feeling old demons rising at the sight of her.

Although she had changed her green dress for a formal black suit, white shirt, and tied her long, curly red hair into a ponytail, her eyes were red and swollen, expressing exhaustion and deep sadness. She looked as if she had not slept at all.

"Miss Isley," he said softly with a slight nod as he came forward to greet her.

"Mr. Wayne, Mr. Fox," she replied, shaking his hand. "Thank you for accepting my last minute meeting request."

"You're welcome. We are truly sorry for your loss," Bruce said, inviting her to sit as the memory of the picture of the Amazonian expedition team at the end of her talk yesterday evening surfaced. She had been standing between both deceased men, smiling.

Her jaw clenched; she nodded her thanks and sat down in the loveseat facing Fox's.

"It happened so... abruptly," she said, crossing her legs nervously. After a deep sigh she added, "Well, you must wonder the reason of my presence, and I know how busy you are, so I'll get straight to the point: I have two pressing matters to inform you of."

Bruce sent Fox a perplexed look and sat down in the third loveseat arranged around a small table.

"We're all ears," Fox said, straightening noticeably.

"The first is to tell you that Ivan knew of his fragile condition and had long since taken all the necessary steps to ensure that the company would survive if he were to pass on. Although the loss is terrible, CamTech still holds many talents worth being trusted-"

Fox raised his hand in an appeasing gesture. He understood only too well the implications of the sudden death of a company owner, as well as the disarray of the employees. He had walked this terrible path once before in his younger years.

"Let's not worry about that, Miss Isley, shall we? We were in no way discussing about breaking our agreement."

The young woman sighed in relief, and tears appeared on her eyes.

"I'm sorry... it's just that it's a bit difficult... I knew him for all my adult life," she said, nervously searching for a handkerchief in her bag with shaking hands.

"It's okay, don't worry," Bruce said softly, holding out to her the box of Kleenex standing on the side table next to him. Their fingers brushed slightly. "You said earlier that there were two pressing matters?" he added quickly to switch her back into business mode before overwhelming memories emerged. He knew they would.

"Yes, you're right. And this one I wanted to tell you before a leak in the Press happened."

"What is it?" Bruce inquired, straightening at the sudden gleam of terror that flashed in her green eyes.

"Last night, one of our maintenance staff had been violently assaulted and stripped of his clothes. His magnetic access card and code have been used to break into the level two greenhouse facility. Given our latest commercial success, the police are labeling it as a possible case of industrial espionage and have begun looking into it accordingly."

"Do you have any idea of the aggressor's identity?" Fox asked, feeling a sudden tension filling the room.

"Not yet. The police is in the process of reviewing all the camera recordings right now. We'll know more in a few hours."

Annoyed, Bruce stood up and walked to his bay window. His hands in his pockets, he stared again at people in the street. Running away from the rain was their only concern. It was better that way. Gotham's citizens did not need to share with him the unpleasant knot that twisted his gut right now.

A dangerous spiral had been set in motion. From now on things could get out of control very quickly. If a single camera allowed Katherine's identification, they would all be in trouble. Was the Batman going to need to destroy them? Could he ask this to Gordon? Damn... this was going further than his original goal to defend Gotham's citizens.

The phone rang and jerked him out of his thoughts for the second time.

Feeling suddenly tired, he headed back toward his desk at a weary pace and extended his arm to pick up the handset.

"Thank you, Jo-Ann, I'll tell him," he said, looking at Fox who, hearing his secretary's name, had automatically lifted his head toward him.

"Kate Hawkins just arrived for the interview," Bruce told him with a nod, knowing that his old partner would catch his silent request.

"Oh, yes, that's right," Fox said, slowly unfolding his six feet four. "I sincerely apologize, Miss Isley. I hope next time we see each other, it will be under better circumstances," he added, bowing his head before heading toward the door.

oOo

An instant later, Fox pushed the glass-door of his secretary's office, anteroom of his own.

"Good morning, Miss Hawkins," he said with a smile as the young woman averted her eyes from the large, black, and white picture of an aerial view of Gotham hung on the wall on his left.

"Mr. Fox," she replied, returning a smile that did not reach her eyes.

"After you," he said, inviting her to come into his office with a sweep of his arm.

Fox winced. No matter how hard she had tried to conceal it, she was limping, and her pallor was a bit alarming.

"Have a seat, please," he said, closing the door behind them. "What happened to your hand?" he asked, staring at the large bandage covering it from the wrist to the tip of her fingers.

"Never had the green thumb," she replied, sitting down very slowly.

"Do I understand that you fought with a plant and lost?" he replied, eyes wide opened of stupefaction. Surely Bruce had some competition for coming up with weird explanations. Last time he had been forced to put his arm in a brace, he had said that he had slipped in his bath. "Are there any other injuries I should be aware of?" he added, keeping himself from smiling.

"Unfortunately, I have more pressing matters to discuss with you."

_Ah. Why am I not surprised?_ he wondered, having the dark premonition that he was not going to like what she was about to reveal. "I'm all ears," he said for the second time in ten minutes.

Katherine bent forward with a wince and removed a notebook and a pen from her bag.

"I need an enlightened opinion," she said, glancing through his peripheral vision for any subtle movement as she removed a USB plug with a micro SD drive from inside the notebook.

"My knowledge of biology isn't as good as yours, and I don't want to write anything false in my article."

Covering it with her hand, she slid it onto the mahogany desk.

"We certainly don't want you to suffer the throes of your editor once again, do we?" he replied, discreetly reaching for the device.

"That would be nice indeed. And this, so you can contact me," she added, taking out a card from her inner jacket pocket.

Fox cast a quick glance over it. A simple white card with _Herald Tribune_ _- London_ written in small black courier font in the center. Her name was below along with a phone number.

"If you want me to be of any help, what do I have to look for?" he asked, raising his head.

Katherine briefly looked down and sighed as if deciding how much information she could reveal.

"Hicks was a chemist engaged in illegal activities. Of which nature, I don't know yet. But one thing's sure: dying of an accident just after being arrested and too quickly released is as probable as winning at the lottery."

Fox sighed at a dreadful thought.

"Do you think he could have been involved in the development of a chemical weapon of some kind?" he asked.

"My guess is as good as yours, but if it's truly the case, we need to know a.s.a.p. because, in such an operation, when one eliminates a partner..."

"It means that he's no longer useful," he finished, now having the confirmation that his day had taken a bad turn. "I shall come back to you as soon as possible then."

Relieved, Katherine slowly stood up and smiled slightly. "Thank you, Mr. Fox. Rest assured, I greatly appreciate your help," she said, putting her notebook back into her bag.

They walked back to the elevators at a tranquil pace, talking of the severe and quite unusual drought in England while Gotham was completely submerged.

They had just reached their destination when a laugh, coming from the corridor on their left, attracted their attention. Both turned their heads and frowned as they saw Bruce chatting with Isley. Relaxed, he had one hand casually shoved into his pants pocket and a smirk on his face.

Fox sighed and shook his head. Sometimes, Bruce's playboy personality came out just a bit too extravagant. And he was not the only one to find his behavior out of line considering the events. Next to him, the British agent had just closed her mouth out of shock. With a certain interest, he saw her frowning a second before a slight smirk appeared on her face.

"I'll come to take you at six-," Bruce was saying to Isley just as Katherine moved to intercept the couple.

"Oh, Doctor Isley, I'm really sorry to have learned the sad news," she interrupted with a seemingly sincere expression on her face.

"So kind of you," CamTech's acting president replied, looking a bit displeased.

"I understand your time is thin today, but I'd like to-"

"Miss?"

"Hawkins. From the Herald tribune," Katherine recalled her just as the bell announced the elevator's arrival.

The doors opened on an empty cabin, and without hesitation, Pamela Isley stepped in.

"Right, Miss Hawkins. I suggest you call the reception desk. They'll give you all the information you need for your article," she said dryly as she pushed the button to force the doors to close themselves.

"How tactful of you," Bruce growled with a reproachful tone.

Her gaze still fixed on the elevator's doors, Katherine raised an eyebrow and coldly answered, "I didn't mean to be. And I need a word with you."

Fox shuddered at the sight of Bruce and the MI6 agent exchanging a dark glance. _Who was talking to who exactly?_ he wondered, not sure if Bruce knew about the real identity of the woman next to him, and definitely sure that she was ignorant of who she was staring daggers at.

"I'll be in my office if someone needs me," he said, walking out of the sudden bubble of tension with a sigh of relief.


	13. Ch 12

**Gotham City – Gainsly District**

**July 26, 2009 - 9:45 pm**

* * *

"Dammit!" Kate swore through clenched teeth when she felt the vibration of her cell phone.

"Hawkins," she said, holding the phone with her shoulder as she raised her arms to adjust the camera watching Isley's living-room.

"Right now I'm a little busy. Can I-" Kate suddenly raised her head in alarm at the sound of a key in a lock.

Someone was opening the entrance door.

Kate's pulsed jumped under a sudden discharge of adrenaline. A metallic clatter sounded, signalling that the keys had fallen to the ground.

"I'll call you back," she said to Fox, putting back her cell phone in her pocket.

Quickly, she finished setting up the camera, put back the chair at its place and stepped on the balcony just as the lights came on, chasing away the shadows that concealed her.

Wasting no time on looking back, she climbed over the guardrail and let herself fall onto the balcony below with a wince.

_What the hell was Isley doing here already?_ she wondered. Furious, she took again her cellphone out from its strap and checked. With the exception of Fox's call a minute ago, there had been none. No missed call, no message either. Bruce had simply not given the warning they had grudgingly agreed on sooner this afternoon in his office.

_Fuck! _she muttered to herself, barely able to keep herself from hitting the guardrail with her fist.

Right, she knew that he liked the woman and that according to him, she was misguided in her thinking. Working with Hicks was absolutely not proving in any way that she was in cahoots with him. But nonetheless, he had agreed to give her a hand for tonight only because he understood that she had to know for certain.

Still feeling Bruce's cold gaze on her, Kate took a good breath, clenched her teeth, and repeated the same maneuver four more times, until her feet hit the wet sidewalk.

In the dark alley, she walked back toward the van that was parked under the cover of a large maple tree. Betrayal... that was how she felt. If it hadn't been for that fucking woman's clumsiness, she would have been caught red-handed. For God's sake, he could not ignore what this would mean!

Kate sighed and shook her head, bitter. Yeah. He knew what it meant.

Feeling furious, she climbed inside the van and closed the door behind her silently. Now in a safe place, she quickly removed her balaclava and wiped the beads of sweat pearling on her forehead with the back of her bandaged hand. A hiss of pain escaped her lips as she closed her eyes tight. The inflammation was not getting any better, and she regretted not having taken the opportunity sooner to show it to Fox.

Despite the fact that she had told herself that she would not take more painkillers for at least a few days, Kate retrieved the bottle in her bag. Taking out an energizing beverage from the little fridge, she swallowed one tablet and sat down on the chair to focus back on her operation.

Quickly, she turned the surveillance equipment on and put the headphones on her ears as a large orange and yellow shape appeared on the screen. Too large to belong to a person only.

_"I'm vibrating..."  
"I hope so!" _  
(Laughs) _"I mean your phone is vibrating!"  
"Oh! Here. It won't bother us anymore!"  
"Too Bad..." _

A door slammed, a garbage bin crashed down, cats screamed, and a dog barked.

Leaning against the brick wall of the nearest building, Kate forced herself to take some deep breaths to control a flood of emotions. Now that was a blow. And a fucking hard one. How could she have missed what had happened this afternoon? Not only the way Bruce had looked at Isley, but how Isley had looked at him as well!

How could she have been stupid enough to believe he would work with her because they had once been in the same boat? Being kicked out that way would be a fucking low, dirty blow from their American sister agency. And by catching her this way, he would lower Isley's guard toward him. The whole savior act. The bad guy has been neutralized, I'm here to protect you, just lie down and tell me who killed your friends and might want to kill you, too.

He was taking her investigation out of her hands.

Kate swore, disgusted. In all other circumstances, she would have probably stood down. But not this time. Not after Jack's death. One way or another, she would get to the bottom of this affair and bring the responsible in front of her country's justice.

Her cell phone buzzed again.

With a curse, she took it out and looked at the screen announcing another incoming call from Lucius Fox.

Why was he so insisting? Had he discovered something in the files she had brought him sooner?

But still shaken by what had just happened, Kate hesitated to answer. Could someone be trusted in this damned city?

She sighed and closed her eyes of despair. She did not have much of a choice anymore. Calling London was not an option since she had chosen not to warn them about Jack's death, and anyway, by the time one of their analyst would go through everything, the whole thing could have burst in their faces or completely vanished from the surface of the Earth. And Jack would have died for nothing.

Katherine shook her head, not ready to live with the consequences of her fear of trusting. With cold anger burning into her veins, she climbed back into the van to take the call.

The forty minutes trip toward CamTech was barely enough to calm her. If Fox had not been so adamant about his need for samples, she would probably have given up for tonight to go and lie down as she was sure she was coming down with something. Kate cursed. This was not the time to fell ill, she thought as she parked her van in a dark spot in the street behind the production unit.

Night-vision goggles over her eyes, she climbed out of the van and sidled through the darkness toward the building.

Half an hour later, Kate was putting the last sample of soil and plant in her backpack when the door of the greenhouse opened.

Hastily, she crouched underneath the bench between two cupboards and held her breath while the guard's flashlight started to sweep the place.

A terrible itching chose this moment to strike her. As she clenched her fingers around her wrist to keep from scratching, her elbow touched the nearby chair.

_Way to go Kat!_ she mentally swore when the guard's flash light immediately redirected toward her direction.

Utterly tense, she tried to enter deeper into the hole while a clear picture of Van Gogh's Without His Ear appeared in her mind. Not able to take deep breaths to endure the pain, Katherine bit her lower lip and forced herself not to close her eyes. If the guard spotted her, she would have to act fast.

He was at less than five feet from her when the spray system engaged, making all the plants quiver.

The guard stopped, muttered a curse and moved away.

_Another close call, she_ thought, feeling exhausted, too hot, and furious against herself for committing such a mistake.

Stifling in the confined space, Kate waited to hear the guard walking out of the greenhouse before getting out of her hiding place. Her body ached at the movement, and a dizzy spell hit her. After some time, she managed to shake it away and staggered toward the door giving on the offices corridor.

In a few minutes, she would be free.

Stopping on the small landing, Kate put her hand on the greenhouse's door knob and frowned. A bright ray of light was filtering around the door.

_A maintenance employee? _she wondered, feeling her heart rate increasing.

With a curse she slowly half-opened the door and cast a glance inside.

As far as she could see, which was not much beyond ten feet, the two alleys between the three rows of plants were clear.

Tip-toeing, she silently made her way on the left alley. She was only feet away from the window by which she had entered earlier this evening when steps echoed in the other alley.

For the second time of the evening Kate hastily crouched down in a small place below the middle bench just in time to see a silhouette stopping in front of the window, blocking her way out.

_Bloody hell!_ Kate mentally cursed as she cast a look at the woman.

Dressed in a dark green leotard, she did not look like a maintenance employee, nor a scientist either.

Kate winced when the woman took the plant in front of the window and saw the stems immediately wrapping her body, blending with her long and curly red hair.

_Red-haired?_ Katherine's eyes widened. What the hell was Isley doing here at this hour? People used to smoke a cigarette after sex, not come back to work! Damn it!

_Jack was right; traditions were a good thing to rely on. Made people predictable_, she thought, bitter.

Kate was thinking of a way to attract the biologist out of the greenhouse when a sudden movement of the plant grabbed her attention. A red flower had just blossomed at Isley's eye level. Undulating in slow waves, the flower bristled and some very sharp teeth appeared.

Her heart-rate jumped again, and shivers ran through her sweat drenched body. The sound of her own blood pounding fast in her ear was deafening, and a black veil threatened to swallow her vision.

_Com'on Kate,_ g_et a hold on yourself now! This is just a carnivorous plant; no need to panic like a little girl!_ she ordered herself, short breathed, trying to keep herself from jumping out of the stifling place and run away.

What the hell was happening to her? She had never felt so bad because of an irrational fear, and by no means had she ever suffered claustrophobia.

Moved by a feeling of insecurity, her hand automatically grasped her Browning. The solid contact was all she needed to feel in control again.

That was until Isley's suave voice suddenly reverberated.

"They will never put their unworthy hands on you again, beautiful. You're safe now. They didn't understand, even at their end, locked as they were in their pathetic lust for power. To make money with death is repugnant. They deserved to die from the throes of their creation! Now the time is about to come when together, we will unleash the power of your children on this lost city and nothing..."

"Who exactly deserved to die, Dr. Isley?" Kate growled, bursting out of her hiding place, her Browning aiming Isley's head.

The plant suddenly straightened and pointed all of its stems extremities like daggers toward Kate.

Slowly, Isley turned her head toward her, and very calmly, she said, "I don't see what you mean."

Reading on her face that she was not taken as seriously as she should, Kate fired.

Against all odds, Isley smirked.

"Warning shots usually are a sign of empty threats," she said, stepping forward. One by one, the stems detached from her body and fell down like a puppet which strings would have been cut.

A cry of rage escaped Isley's mouth as she turned her gaze on the beheaded plant.

"I am not patient tonight," Kate growled as she lowered her gun's axis, "Next shot will be for your right-"

A rain of glass flew in front of her, along with a huge, black shadow.

_Batman?_

Kate was about to demand he explain himself when she caught sight of Isley taking the opportunity to run away. Without any hesitation, she adjusted her aim and fired another warning shot, this time to behead the closer plant to Isley's own head.

A sharp pain on her right wrist forced her to let go of her gun. Eyes wide opened Kate saw one of Batman's sharp ninja _bats_ bouncing on the ground with a metallic clap. Cradling her injured hand, she sent him a furious glance and took out her knife, readying herself to fight.

_If necessary. Only if necessary!_ she told herself, trying fast to discover if there was a weak point somewhere in his armor. But she could not see any.

Pearls of sweat ran down her eyes, blurring her sight. She blinked several times and took some relief in the fact that he had not taken the opportunity to move. In fact, he seemed calm now, not even in a fighting position. He was relaxed, only staring at her. That freaked her out more than anything.

_What the hell is going on?_ she wondered, not liking at all to find herself in a situation that was void of all logic.

Slender fingers with long, green nails appeared behind Batman's shoulder, touching his chin, caressing his neck and his jaw in sensual movements.

Kate frowned when she saw him taking out his grappling gun out of his belt strap.

"Whoa! Calm down!" she cried, raising her hand, palms opened.

Maybe in close combat her knife would be a valuable weapon, but at this distance, she was painfully aware that it would only bounce on his armor. She needed her gun!

Quickly, she cast a glance at the ground. Her Browning had slid under a bench on her right. It was within reach, but she had to be fast.

Batman shook his head and swayed.

Taking advantage of his unexpected weakness, she threw herself to the right and rolled on the ground. A hissing sound cut the air close to her head and a sharp pain burst on her left collarbone. Projected earth hit her back as a plant fell down behind her. Kate ignored the pain. It did not matter; she had her gun. Sharply focused, she knew that it would find its aim as soon as she was on her feet.

A violent kick on her right side took her before she could finish her roll and sent her crashing against the metallic pole of the nearest bench. An excruciating pain emanated from her spinal cord as she bounced on her stomach. Blinded by the pain, she didn't feel a powerful hand grabbing her by the collar.


	14. Ch 13

**Gotham City – CamTech Pharmaceuticals**

**July 26, 2009 - 10:37 pm**

* * *

Enraged, Batman lifted Kate to her feet and closed his arms around her neck in an armlock.

_NO!_ his mind screamed in panic just as a loud explosion shook the ground.

A warm rain poured down from the suspended network of pipes while the lights flickered and shut down, leaving only the dim halo of red light provided by the emergency system.

On the edge of hyperventilating, Batman looked above his head and around.

_Pamela? Where's Pamela?_ he wondered, blinking. He stared at the greenhouse, but she was nowhere to be seen.

A throbbing pain on his right side jerked him out of torpor. With a growl, he removed the knife that had found a way at a junction between two plates, hissing at the acute pain. A grey haze threatened to swallow his conscience, forcing him to take support on the nearby bench.

Something heavy fell down at his feet.

_Kate? What have I done?_ he wondered, his eyes widening at the sight of her shadow crawling away toward the nearest door.

Feeling nauseous and dizzy, he stepped toward her, but the ground started to move dangerously below his feet. His gaze shifted to the water that ran toward a nearby drain. He gasped. His survival instinct was flashing angry red lights. Those that urged to move away as fast as possible. He shook his head, trying not to yield to panic, and switched his sonar on to analyze his surroundings.

The greenhouse's outlines appeared in select shades of grey.

_Snakes? _he gasped, seeing long and slender things moving on the water's surface.

With a nervous kick, he got rid of one that was trying to wrap itself around his leg. He threw it away just as another suddenly sprung like a deadly arrow from inside a plant and stopped at less than two inches from his eyes.

_Not snakes! Creepers?_ he muttered, as he watched dumbfounded, tiny leaves parting away.

Half-fascinated and horrified, he stared at the bud in the middle slowly swelling.

_Move, move, MOVE!_ screamed his voice in his mind. But his feet did not seem willing to obey.

A loud bang echoed behind him and jerked him out of his trance.

Control on his muscles regained, he quickly retreated toward the door which Kate had already disappeared through. A creeper fell down from the suspended network of pipes just above the door frame, blocking his way. Without hesitation, he sent a batarang and saw the thing falling down on the ground. The swollen bud splashed under his boot as he disappeared through the door.

Batman jumped down the stairs and opened the door giving on the corridor where the offices were located in time to see a shadow hitting the wall at his left with a dull sound.

_What the hell is going on?_ he wondered, catching sight of another commando standing in attack position in the middle of the corridor. Although the guy was shorter and thinner than him, he was taller than Kate.

As he cast a look at Kate's silhouette, collapsed on the ground, Batman caught sight of the flames inside the laboratory. Things could get ugly in a matter of seconds. They had to get out.

A knife suddenly flew toward him. With a curse, he deflected it with the side of his arm, thinking that being stab once per night was enough.

Having the confirmation that the other commando was hostile toward him too, he engaged the fight, determined to make it short.

After a minute, Batman shuddered. His opponent moved with fierce agility and speed. Like him, he blocked, attacked at the same time and as the fight went on, he had to admit that he had not crossed the path of such a fighter for a very long time.

A sweep sent him crashing on the ground. Caught in his momentum, the commando staggered and slightly dropped his guard enough for Batman's quick reflexes to kick him hard in the gut. The commando crashed against the wall, bounced forward, and fell on his knees.

Batman was about to send him another kick when a cry attracted his attention. Looking up, he saw Kate moving erratically to get rid of her backpack as a creeper attempted to strangle her.

He was heading to her help when the commando attacked him again.

Batman blocked a kick just before it hit his chin, but the other used the provided support to jump in the air and kick him with his other foot on the head. Groggy by the blow to his temple, Batman let go of his grasp. Then a shower of kicks fell on him from all around.

With dread, he noticed that his opponent described a circle around him. He knew the transition, but disoriented and sluggish, because of the loss of blood, he executed his block a second too late; a last kick to the chin sent him hitting the ground hard just as an explosion in the lab shattered all the windows.

By the time he came back to himself and got to his feet, the shadow had disappeared.

Coughing, he wiped the blood from his mouth with the back of his hand. Looking around, he saw Kate throwing her backpack inside the laboratory and crumble to the ground.

Worried, he crawled toward her and leaned against the wall next to her.

"Get away... from me..." she whispered with difficulty.

"I'm afraid we're in the same boat from now on," he replied, his voice harsher than usual. _What the hell had just happened?_ he wondered.

"Get down... take ...nother one..."

Batman chuckled and coughed again. The throbbing pain in his right side, just below the ribs, made him shiver. He had to move now before the loss of blood would weaken him too much. Given her faint, erratic, and whistling breathing, he had to make her move before she would lose consciousness.

Another loud explosion shook the ground. Batman threw his cape in protection above them and cast a worried glance at their surroundings.

Flames leaped out from the shattered laboratory bay windows, bringing the temperature close to an unbearable level, and freeing toxic gases.

They had to move now or risk being asphyxiated, and buried under tons of burning debris.

"Let's go!" he said, putting his arm behind her back to haul her up to her feet.

To his relief, Kate cooperated without questioning.

Crouched as low as possible beneath his cape, they crawled in the water toward the end of the corridor, lungs and eyes grazed by irritating, toxic fumes.

Coughing his lungs out, Batman opened the exit door, pushed Kate inside the covered stairwell, and quickly climbed down the one level.

Fighting a dizzy spell, he half opened the door that led to the employee parking.

_Just what we needed! _he swore to himself at the sight of five police patrols and one fire truck.

Someone - a guard? - was talking to a police officer, and soon after, Batman saw all the cops retreating behind their cars doors, aiming rifles toward his and Kate's position.

Batman shuddered at the thought of being trapped between fire and guns.

Thinking fast of a way to get them out of their predicament, he silently closed the emergency exit door. A painfully raspy fit of cough sounded behind him, and he turned to look at Katherine.

"Hey!" he exclaimed, coughing. "Stay awake!" he said, keeping her from lying down.

Kate half opened her eyes. "What are the odds _this_ time?" she asked, staring at him.

Although relieved to hear her voice, a sign that she was not completely out, Batman frowned, his heart missing a beat as he remembered the circumstances during which she had asked him the same question, six years ago.

Running away from the triad killers sent after her in Lhasa, they had taken refuge in a forest on the outskirts of Nyingchi. Because of the last downpours and the injuries she had sustained when she had saved his life, they had progressed too slowly.

At the end of a tense argument, where he had advanced the fact that they would be trapped, they had nonetheless established their camp inside a cavern when a thunder storm had started nearby, pushing them to take cover from the cold rain that had fallen over the forest.

He had been right.

Just before dawn they had awoken, coughing out their lungs. Their pursuers had thrown smoke grenades into their shelter.

As stepping out in the open was the best way to die riddled with bullets, they had tried their chance on a narrow passage in the cavern, hoping that they would not end up drowning in a siphon. In complete darkness, coughing, grazing their hands, shoulders, arms, and knees on the rough rocks, they had slowly made their way through spider webs.

Batman coughed again, and shook his head, realizing that the similar and stressful experience had betrayed his identity. He was masquerading his voice to avoid being recognized, but not his way of coughing. For an agent trained to notice details ordinary people would neglect, it was as good as fingerprints.

"Better than you think," he replied, reaching for the Tumbler's command hidden in his belt. "Can you run?" he asked, just to let her know what was coming next.

"I don't think I could even walk..." she paused and coughed. "Although with the devil after me, I'll win you a gold medal at any race."

He nodded. Having no choice definitely made decisions easier.

"At my signal, we'll get out and run toward the railroad," he said, pushing the button that activated one of many diversion programs.

Soon the Tumbler would slowly merge as close as possible from his position, and at his command would briefly stop, open its doors, then drive away at full throttle. The police patrols should then follow it to the boundaries of the city and assist at a spectacular fall from the high cliffs bordering the ocean before joining his marine base.

Kate silently nodded and stood up with difficulty, mentally preparing herself for the coming ordeal. Catching sight of the bluish light of the screen in his hands, she stepped closer and watched him directing his vehicle on a PDA slightly bigger than an iPhone.

A whistle escaped her lips. "Who's your supplier?"

"Sorry. Top secret," he smirked.

"You've got to be kidding me," she muttered, watching dumbfounded as all cops suddenly started clearing the area.

"Let's go now."

Experiencing a sense of _déjà-vu_, they slipped out of the burning building and ran toward the darkness surrounding Gotham's railroad.


	15. Interlude 1

_**Brazil - Baniwan's village **_

_**June 18, 2000 – 9:23 pm**_

* * *

"Aqui! Aqui!"

"Aqui Também!"

Alerted by the sudden shouts coming from outside, Pamela raised her head from her notebook and cast a perplexed glance at the community hut's lounge. Sitting in a worn armchair facing her, Ivan Nimanec slowly stood up and headed toward the large entrance, while on her left, Hicks raised an annoyed eyebrow before focusing back on his laptop.

"Todos! Ficar dentro de casa! Agora!"

_Stay inside the houses? Why? What the hell is going on?_ Pamela wondered, feeling urgency and fear in the reverberating voices.

Intrigued, Pamela stood up from the couch and joined Ivan on the doorframe, adjusting a light, multi-colored blanket on her shoulders. After days of rain, the forest was colder than she could have ever imagined, and the impenetrable fog that wrapped the village since yesterday chilled her to the bones.

Pam was staring at the dense, greyish veil that invaded the covered terrace when a bulky silhouette suddenly appeared.

"Stay inside, Doctor!" their guide exclaimed, his rifle ready in hand while he cast nervous glances around him.

Not far away, a baby cried, and a door slammed.

"What's going on?" Nimanec insisted, stepping out on the porch.

"A jaguar is nearby. Go back inside, Doctor!" the guide said just as an old, wrinkled woman appeared out of the fog, a fist brandished above her head.

"Ir! Ir agora!" she aggressively cried out as she walked toward them.

"Và para dentro vehla!" the guide cried, grabbing her wrist to lead her inside the hut. But the woman fought his arm away, showing a surprising strength and quickly disappeared back into the fog.

"What did she say?" Pamela shuddered, still feeling the woman's small, deep-set eyes staring at her.

"Don't bother; she's old and crazy," the guide replied, pushing them back into the hut. "I have to track the jaguar with the others now. Stay inside until I come back and say it's safe to wander outside."

Still haunted by the woman wraith, Pam grasped her Director's arm. "We should comply, Ivan," she whispered.

The head of the scientific expedition turned his head toward her, and she shuddered at the flash of anger she saw in his eyes. She knew him for long enough to know that being grounded was an ordeal for him.

They had barely had a chance to explore the village surroundings because a raging rain had hit the valley, though the monsoon period was behind them. Now that it had stopped, the fog and the beast kept them inside. Like her Director, Pamela too was aware that each day not spent collecting samples of plants and soil was lost time that got them away from their goal to find new active molecules to cure diseases. Although right now, she was not sure if she would be able to explore the jungle.

Weary, Pamela collapsed back onto the couch with a sigh of exhaustion and buried her face in her hands while Ivan cast a last glance at the terrace before closing the double doors and joined his small team in the lounge.

"What's wrong, Pam?" he asked as he sat down back in his armchair.

Stifling a sob, Pam raised reddish eyes toward him. "Nothing, it's nothing, Ivan. Really...I just haven't been sleeping well since we reached the village."

"How many?" a dull, almost sepulchral voice echoed from behind her.

Startled, Pamela turned her head too quickly and winced as an acute pain seared from her neck and down to her shoulder and arm. "I beg your pardon?" she asked to the old Indian sitting on a stool at the bar, his back still turned to them.

Until now, she had never heard him speak a single world. In fact, the man was the perfect caricature of the ravages of alcohol and unemployment on native civilizations, and, sadly enough, nobody seemed to worry about his fate.

The man slowly put his glass of _cachaça _on the bar in front of him and turned dark eyes toward her. Dark icy eyes that cut through her mind as the sharpest stake. "How many nightmares?"

Pamela's eyelids shook as she got the disturbing impression that the man was reading her thoughts. "I... I don't know. It's been increasing since the first day..." she whispered, not quite able to keep her voice from shivering.

"And now it's every night," he said, not really asking a question but more stating a fact.

Pamela felt her heart missing a beat. "How do you know that?" she asked, although she was not sure she wanted to know the answer.

The old man turned back his gaze on his glass. "I can help fight it," he said, taking a sip of the translucent liquid.

Before she could notice it, Pamela was on her feet and was slowly walking toward him. "How?" she asked, eyes wide open as she sat down on the stool next to him.

"A ritual."

"Com'on, Pamela, you're not going to believe such..." Ivan said, rising to his feet, too.

"Ivan, look at me!" Pam cried as she turned back toward him, her heart pounding furiously in her chest. Embarrassed, she took a deep breath to calm herself and added, "I'll do anything to be able to sleep again!"

"Then come back to see me in nine days," informed the old Indian, painfully unfolding his stiff bones from the stool.

Pamela turned wide, scared eyes toward the Indian. "Wh-why so long?"

Upon reaching the door step, the old man briefly stopped and frowned. "We have to wait for the full moon," he replied as if it were obvious.

"Of course, the full moon!" Hicks giggled, obviously listening to the discussion with a distracted ear.

"Hicks, you're not helping!" Pam snapped. "I'll be there. Thank you."

The old man bowed his head and disappeared in the fog.

* * *

_Translations :_

_aqui_ = here

_aqui também_ = here also

_todos! Ficar dentro de casa_ = Everybody! stay indoor

_agora_ = now

_Ir agora_ = go now

_và para dentro velha_ = go inside old woman


	16. Ch 14

**Gotham City - Wayne Manor **

**July 27, 2009 - 3:12 am**

* * *

An insistent buzz shattered his nightmare and yanked him back to the darkness of his room.

Numb and disoriented, Alfred extended an arm toward the night table, his fingers searching for his Blackberry. He grabbed it and cast an annoyed glance at the small screen. A private number?

For a second he considered rejecting the call, but his instincts enjoined him not to ignore it. Not a lot of people had his number, and nobody would call in the middle of the night if it was not for something of importance.

"Alfred Pennyworth," he said a bit harshly.

The voice which answered him he did not recognize; the question on the other hand – what stands between a lion and a unicorn? - annoyed him further. As it was usually followed by a call for help, he could as well consider his night finished.

Alfred threw the bed sheet away and sat up, weary.

"The Queen and the Country," he replied in a yawn as he switched on the lamp. "Even at three a.m.," he added, thinking that they would find a way to join him even in his tomb.

On the other end, the agent delivered the message.

"How bad?... Then I suggest you call 911 inst-"

Alfred mentally cursed. Of course the agent did not wish to have to justify her wound nor to prove her identity. The mission first and foremost. Nothing had changed; always the same routine.

"Location?" he asked, "I'll be there in thirty."

Quickly, Alfred put on a shirt, pants, and, as silently as possible, headed toward the garage.

As he crossed the vast hall, his eyes automatically raised toward the first level. Five hours earlier, he had merged onto Bruce's distress signal, near the junction between the railroad and Highway Ten. He had found him unconscious on the ground. Not without difficulty, he had hauled him into the car before driving back to the manor where Lucius was already waiting for them.

Alfred sighed. He had no idea what had happened, but on the radio they said that another building had exploded in an industrial zone on the outskirts of Sheal, not very far away from where he had found Bruce. The smell that emanated from his armor told him that, indeed, Batman had been in the burning building. And the stab wound Lucius had stitched shortly after indicated that it had not been for a peaceful walk.

_Was the call linked to what had happened in the Industrial Zone?_ Alfred wondered. Bruce had not told much about his last days operations, although, what was the probability of an MI6 operation turning awry without Batman being involved? Slim. Very slim. In this city, coincidences seldom occurred.

While he drove on deserted streets toward the address he had been given, a motel on Tenth Avenue in the Fifth District, Alfred could not help but see ghosts from his past rising in front of his eyes.

Edwards... His oldest brother in arms. How many missions had they accomplished together? Some successful, others, less. It was so long ago that it seemed another life. With the exception of their last mission. This one was as vivid in his mind as if it had happened yesterday. The mission which had torn their friendship apart and broke him.

In the forest near Rangoon, he had lost his reason to live.

Two hours after the sunset they had lit a fire a few miles south from the guerilla's base. Quickly, it had spread into the mountains, forcing the evacuation of the base and trapping the men between high cliffs and a torrent. Positioned as snipers in two different places along the wild waters, they had taken them one by one. Panicking in the darkness, the guerilla's leader and his men had not stood a chance.

But in the middle of the night, the wind had changed direction. Their operation had turned into a nightmare from which they had a hard time escaping alive.

Four days later, when he had gotten back to the village where he was living, there was nothing left but ashes and charred bodies. His wife,and their young boy were amongst them.

He had then asked for a transfer to the United States, and he had never talked nor seen Edwards again until two years ago. Rachel's death and Bruce's painful mourning had pushed him to find the strength to settle the score with his own past and get back in touch with his old friend.

The yellow and green neon sign of the motel attracted his gaze, and Alfred shook the memories away as he parked the car under a large tree. Assured that he was alone, he stepped out, crossed the poorly lit street, and headed toward the bedrooms units.

A few seconds later, he passed in front of the only bedroom from which light filtered through the blinds. A quick glance on the number on the door told him that it was the one he was looking for.

Standing back by the force of habit, Alfred knocked once to announce his presence, all senses on alert.

He counted to five, and, getting no answer, he tried the handle.

The door creaked open, and he cast a brief look inside the small, decrepit room.

The MI6 agent was lying on the only bed, eyes closed. Wearing black cargo pants and an according sleeveless top, her skin shone under a thick layer of sweat while her chest heaved up and down too fast.

He needed no doctor to know that she was burning with fever, and that troubled him. He had expected a gunshot wound, not sickness.

Alfred stepped in and closed the door behind him without losing sight of the gun brushing against her right hand fingers.

"Miss?" he called, worried. Now that he was closer, he could see a white, soaked towel wrapped around her left hand.

"mm'okay Jack..." she whispered, triggered back to consciousness by his presence. Eyes half-opened, she sat up on her elbows with a wince of pain.

"And I am the Queen Mother Herself," Alfred replied as he grabbed a chair to sit down next to her.

"What happened to your arm?"

A flash of fear suddenly crossed the agent's burning eyes and a shaking gun raised into the air.

"Alfred Pennyworth. And you are?" he calmly said, pushing the barrel out of his way.

The woman's eyes fluttered when pearls of sweat fell down on them. After casting a nervous look all around her, she finally relaxed and lay down.

"Hawkins. Katherine Hawkins," she whispered.

"Pleased to meet you, Hawkins," Alfred said as she closed her eyes. "Now answer my first question, soldier," he ordered, using a tone he had not used for such a long time. He had to keep her conscious.

It worked. Provided with a military context, her eyes opened and focused on him.

She turned her head and pointed with a shaking finger to something behind him. "In there, sir... Don't touch it with bare hands, sir..."

Alfred turned his head and cast a look over his shoulder. On the desk, a small black purse caught his eyes.

A few seconds later, he emptied its content on the night table.

A press card, a wallet, a pen, lipstick, keys... although these were not uncommon belongings, he would not rely on their apparently safe nature, maybe with the exception of the bottle of Tylenol which did not seem to harbor any markings that suggested there would be more than regular pills inside. No cyanide or other lethal drug inside. The thought almost made him smile. This was a long lost practice.

What was more unusual on the other hand was inside a small plastic bag.

_A plant?_ Alfred wondered, staring at what looked like a leaf soaking into a greenish gooey liquid.

"When have you been exposed to-" he asked as he turned his eyes back to the woman. "Wake up, Hawkins!"

Her eyes sprang open at the order, and she turned a frightened gaze toward him.

"Ss-sorry, sir..." she whispered, slightly out of breath.

"No need to be, soldier," Alfred calmly replied before repeating his question.

"One night ago... They were moving, sir!" she added, eyes wide with terror as she suddenly sat up again.

"Calm down," Alfred replied, forcing her to lie down on the mattress. Not giving much importance to a fever-driven hallucination, he added, "I'm going to have a look at your arm."

As gently as possible, Alfred removed the towel that she had wrapped around it, shuddering when he felt how warm it was at the touch. _This is a hell of a fever_, he thought, remembering the times when Bruce had come down with such high temperatures as a baby. How worried his mother had been despite her husband reassuring words that the boy was building up strong natural defenses.

In today's case, Alfred doubted that the diagnosis was the same.

"You didn't come alone in Gotham. Where is your team leader?" he asked, when he saw her eyes closing again.

She seemed to hesitate for a second, averting her gaze. Finally, she said, "Killed, sir."

Alfred shuddered, although not because of the answer; he had anticipated it. What he had not was the

nasty looking cut oozing an ichor disturbingly similar to the gooey liquid in the plastic bag. This over-stepped his competences.

Now definitely worried, Alfred wrapped the wound back into the towel and took his Blackberry out of its strap.

"Did you report his death to London?" he asked, waiting for Lucius to answer while he put all her belongings back into the purse.

A flash of anger darkened the agent's gaze.

"I guess the answer's no," Alfred sighed just as Lucius's voice crackled in his ear.

"Sorry to wake you up, but I came across another medical issue that needs your immediate attention... Thank you."

As Alfred returned his cell phone in its strap, he turned his head toward the woman, feeling her intense stare on him.

"Will you back me, sir?"

He sighed and slightly shook his head. Young agents never knew when to stand down, nor not to cross the line separating duty from personal warfare either, and this, despite their physical state. Training, resilience, and dark ire never made a good cocktail.

"I'll do what I can," he said, choosing not to upset the sick officer. Once the fever was down and the cause treated, it would still be time to force some sense in this brain. "First, we'll get you medical help. Come with me," he said, thanking God for his back that she was lighter than Bruce.

As they stepped out of the room and covered the distance back to his car, Alfred could not help but wonder when he had become a semaphore for young people caught in the raging storms of the clandestine operations realm.


	17. Ch 15

**Gotham City - Wayne Manor **

**July 27, 2009 - 1:02 pm**

* * *

A low rumble shook the ground.

Roused out of light sleep by another storm, Bruce turned around to burrow his head in his pillow but stopped his movement when a searing pain took his breath away, going up to his wounded shoulder and down his leg as if he had just been electrocuted.

How long it took him to control the pain and reorient himself he had no idea, though after a certain moment, he realized that the darkness of his room was not complete.

With difficulty, Bruce raised on an elbow to cast a look at the clock on the night table and crashed down on his pillow with a curse, closing his eyes out of sheer exhaustion. Alfred was probably climbing the stairs with his lunch.

Putting his sleep behind him, Bruce threw the sheets away and slowly sat up. The contact of his bare feet on the hard floor refreshed him, giving him the needed boost to go and open the curtains.

A few seconds later, a bright sunlight and a pleasant breeze rushed into the room. But somehow the serene countryside that stretched as far as the eye could see felt strangely out of place.

_No storm?_

Annoyed by this feeling, Bruce turned to retrieve some clothes from his wardrobe, thinking that after the last evening, one could only feel disturbed. What had happened in the roof top greenhouse made no sense.

One moment he was trying to only dissuade Kate from shooting Pamela, the next he was shooting Kate, and in another blurry flash, he was defending her against a commando who had kicked his ass. Even at the end, when he had run away from the burning building with Kate on his heels, persuaded that he had managed to obtain her cooperation, he had turned back and seen her heading toward a fire truck.

The risk had paid off. Firemen were not police officers and only focused on the safety of the people running toward them, calling for help.

Irritated to have to let her escape, he had watched her disappear behind the safety perimeter just as the building's metallic frame emitted a shriek. A mere second later, the laboratory wing's roof collapsed, taking the rooftop greenhouse and all evidence that might have been in there into a raging fire.

Dizzy and short breathed because of the loss of blood, he had chosen to stand down for the night and called Alfred to pick him up at the railroad junction on the South Highway.

A shudder ran down Bruce's spine.

With hindsight, it had been a good move because he did not remember making for the meeting point.

The mind preoccupied, Bruce put on his shirt and cast an annoyed glance at the large compressing bandage wrapped around his abdomen. It hurt, but at least it was clean of blood stains. The stitches seemed to be holding. For now.

Shortly after, Bruce closed the bedroom's door behind him and shuddered at the silence that reigned in the manor. A bit surprised not to hear Alfred's steps, he considered to go down to the kitchen, but finally he headed toward the study, the mind preoccupied to make some sense of what had happened the last few days. He had to find what linked the Scarecrow and Hicks and also to ask Gordon to order a toxicological screen on CamTech's president body if it hadn't been done already. As Pamela had said, her colleagues deaths were too close not to be suspect.

Bruce was about to step into the freight elevator when he stopped and walked back to the desk. His heart racing, he composed Pamela's phone number. When Kate had shared her reasoning about Pamela's role in a criminal organization in his office yesterday, he had put forward that Pamela might need protection, not prosecution as she could well be the next target of a killer working for whatever this organization was.

On the other end, the answering machine activated. Worried, Bruce left a quick message to call him back as soon as possible and rushed to the freight elevator, thinking if he had not another issue on his hands.

After what had happened in the greenhouse a few hours later, he had no doubt that Kate was out seeking revenge for Jack's death, and he was the last to give her any lesson in that respect.

While the freight elevator penetrated in the moist darkness of the cave, Bruce was thinking of a way to force the MI6 agent to stand down. He was considering blowing her cover when he entered into the computer room and heard whispers.

"Well, now I catch you plotting behind my back," he said, surprised to find Alfred and Lucius in blue surgeon coveralls in front of the main screen.

As he walked toward them, Bruce cast a look at it and groaned. He had never been fond of human entrails and the close-up of bloodied flesh ruined the little appetite he had.

"How do you feel, Master Wayne?"

"What the hell is that?" he asked, feigning not to have heard Alfred's question.

"A tumor we extracted from your young British friend's hand a few hours ago," Lucius said, grabbing a chair to sit down.

Eyes wide with stupefaction, Bruce cast a glance over his shoulder and frowned. Beyond the large glass door of the medical room, a very faint light filtered, indicating that it was indeed in use.

Although one of his problems had just found an unexpected solution, the presence of a wounded MI6 agent in his basement made him nervous, and several questions rose into his mind as he walked toward the medical room airlock.

The door silently slid open in front of him a few seconds later, granting him passage in the sterile atmosphere. Bruce stepped in and sighed at the sight of Kate's body lying on the treatment table, surrounded by medical equipments.

If it had not been for the slow, steady beat coming from a heart monitor, her pallor and stillness would have made him fear the worst. Annoyed, Bruce came, shook his head, and joined his old friends.

"What kind of tumor?" he asked, nodding his thanks to Alfred when this one held him a cup of coffee.

"One which is not in medical books," Lucius said, shaking his head and letting out a long sigh as he put the video file at its beginning.

Kate's wound appeared again but this time soaked with a greenish, putrescent slime that caused him to swallow a gulp of coffee with difficulty.

"Take a closer look at the light pink, translucent area in the lower right corner," Lucius added impassively as the recording of the extraction began.

In the field of vision of the camera, a pair of clamps appeared and spread the flesh while the slime was sucked up. Shortly after, the cutting edge of a scalpel made a small incision. Blood flooded the screen before the sucking tool made the flesh appear again. Although the tumor seemed huge on screen, it could not have been larger than half an inch.

As the seconds passed by at an increasingly fast rate, Bruce frowned. "It's swelling."

A shudder ran down his spine as he cast a worried glance toward the medical room while on screen the tumor seemed to bubble out of a pond of blood. The video stopped merely thirty seconds later as the tumor, now the size of a large marble, was extracted and placed into a dark pink solution.

"What the hell is that thing?" Bruce whispered.

A grave expression on his face, Lucius opened another file. "A picture is worth a thousand words."

Bruce's eyes widened. The laboratory, built next to the medical room, looked like a war zone. There were traces of fire on one wall, the shelves and their contents were shattered on the ground, littered with broken glass; the incubator was burst open, and its door had left a large impact on the facing wall. The red warning light of the halon gas system still blinked.

"What? An explosive tumor?" he said aghast, looking more closely at his friends and sighed of relief when he did not notice any cuts or burns on their faces and hands. Luckily, they had not been in there when it had exploded.

Lucius nodded while Alfred stated, "Human C4."

Bruce shuddered. It was not every day he could catch a glimpse of terror in Alfred's eyes.

"How did you find her by the way?" Bruce asked, memories of the time when he had lived in a Cambodian village resurfacing. Although the zone had been officially cleared of mines, working everyday to grow crops in such fields had been the villagers's worst fear. This fear had just been superseded by the one of being a mine.

"Come and sit down, Master Wayne. It's time for me to reveal you an open secret."

His heart suddenly beating faster, Bruce moved to lean on the desk, preferring to stand while he unconsciously crossed his arms on his chest. He had been waiting for this moment for a long time, and almost thought that his old friend, and surrogate father, would never reveal his secret.

For the next five minutes, he gravely listened to Alfred's employment circumstances from thirty-five years ago. How he had met his father and mother, who was five months pregnant, at a gala at the British Embassy in Gotham. How his father had talked to the Ambassador about his fear that his unborn child could be an easy target for criminal minds. How he had offered his services as bodyguard a few days later. And last, how the MI6 had backed him with a perfect, new identity; a butler.

At the end, Alfred paused and raised anxious eyes toward him as if trying to decipher on his face how he was taking the news.

Bruce sighed and briefly looked at the ground, searching the right words.

"As if burning an entire forest to chase away a criminal was a mandatory curriculum at the International Butler Academy," he said after a moment, a slight smirk on the face.

"Indeed, sir," Alfred replied with a sad smile, "Indeed."

Feeling the tension easing, Bruce turned his gaze toward Lucius.

"And I guess you knew for..."

"Twenty-five years," Lucius gravely replied.

Bruce's eyes widened and he exhaled very slowly, feeling his heart pounding in his chest under the emotional blow. Twenty-five years ago. His parents's murder.

"The will?" he asked, his voice dying in his throat by a sudden emotion he had not expected.

Lucius nodded.

"Far-sighted, your father had made me your legal tutor if such a case occurred. With Alfred, we decided that it would be best for you to stay in the manor under his close watch."

Bruce felt his heart tighten as a whole part of his past was suddenly revealed. He had never thought that he could be special to Lucius, never thought that his support and loyalty during the last few years, despite the fact that he had crossed the line when he had spied on the whole city to find the Joker, could have such deep roots.

Bruce sighed, straightened, and nodded in gratitude, a slight smile lighting his gaze.

"I guess you can't exactly resign from such an activity?"

Alfred winced. "They asked me to join back several times, especially when you were missing abroad. But now I'm too old to be of any use. I really thought they had all but forgotten about me until a few days ago when I received a request for a discreet medical evaluation." Alfred paused and turned toward the medical room before adding, "And this night, for help again."

Bruce let out a satisfied sigh as the piece of information cast a light on what had happened a few days ago. Things were starting to make sense, and it was reassuring.

"Did you find something in the files Kate gave to you that would explain this tumor?" Bruce asked, switching back with a certain relief to the present.

Lucius sighed and shook his head, obviously at a loss.

"I only found a series of tests were two molecules injected by IV caused a heart attack. But the tumor? No. Nothing even close to provoke such a reaction."

Bruce frowned, his mind establishing a link that he did not like.

Fox sighed, shaking his head as he added, "I had a few analysis running on a sample Alfred found in her bag when the lab exploded. I lost all raw materials. She's our last resource now. When you arrived sooner, I was about to go take new blood and tissue samples from her to bring them to the Tower's old basement lab for analysis."

Lucius briefly stopped to exchange a silent word with Alfred, and Bruce shuddered when he saw a smirk appear on the latter's face.

"Arhh... why do I have the feeling that I'm not going to like what you're about to ask?"

"Because you're an intelligent man, Mr. Wayne," Lucius chuckled. "So what's your answer?"

"You knew it before asking," Bruce replied, checking his watch. He had a little over four hours before the opening of the Annual Energy Symposium in downtown Gotham. Leader company in this sector, Wayne Enterprises was the host of the evening, and he had now to take Lucius's place.

"Thank you. I'm sure your young friend will be more than grateful for your sacrifice. You'll find the speech on my desk."

"Great," Bruce muttered, catching sight of a bottle of painkillers on top of Kate's press card for CamTech's gala. Thinking that he was soon going to be in need of them, he grabbed the bottle and put it in his pants pocket. "I'll use the bunker base tonight Alfred," he added, straightening up.

"By all means, Master Wayne, at thirty-five year old, you don't need my permission to sleep over!"

Bruce chuckled and shook his head, preferring not to answer to this. Definitively, Lucius and Alfred were a formidable duo.

He was walking away when Alfred's cheerful voice sounded, "Have a nice evening, sir!"

Without turning his head, Bruce smiled and waved them good-bye before disappearing into the cave.


	18. Ch 16

_**Gotham City - Convention Center**_

**July 27, 2009 _ - 6:25 pm_**

* * *

Located in the old industrial area of South Hinkley Island, Gotham's convention center oddly stood out from its blackened brick neighbors. Considered as a jewel, or a prominent wart depending on the point of view of the person looking at it, the multi-colored glassed-wall edifice left nobody cold.

For Bruce tonight it was only the place in Gotham he would have wished to avoid at all cost.

At a brisk pace, he crossed the vast hall toward the escalators, his mind preoccupied by the little but infuriating intel he had managed to find earlier this afternoon, sealed in his bunker, in the files Lucius had sent him.

Bruce felt his jaw clenching again. A quick search in Hicks's outlook had revealed that the chemist had visited Jonathan Crane at Arkham at least three times five months ago, though his name had never been mentioned during the investigation that had followed the Scarecrow's escape, nor recorded in the security logs.

When this affair would be over, he would have to take a closer look at Arkham's functioning as it seemed that corruption had spread there, and the place needed some cleaning.

Raised voices attracted Bruce's attention as he stepped out of the escalator on the mezzanine floor. On his left, a large blue and silver signpost indicated that the Annual Energy Symposium was held in the main conference room; an arrow pointed toward a security corridor that a group of a dozen participants travelled to at a relaxed pace.

Annoyed to be forced to focus back his mind on the evening, Bruce walked to join them, and, shortly after, he entered into the conference room, a not so light file holder containing the program of the next week in hand.

As he waited for three representatives of China Energy Corp. to move away from the seating plan, Bruce cast an annoyed glance at the five thousand square foot room. Transformed for the need of the evening into a reception hall, it was plunged into a loud and jovial hubbub suggesting that people indeed were happy to be here. As always, the feeling of being an impostor resurfaced, quickly followed by the thought that he would be more useful patrolling Gotham's streets. He was resisting an urge to escape when he heard his name pronounced above the voices.

Turning his head to his right, Bruce caught sight of the silhouette of the Director of the energy branch of Wayne Enterprises coming his way.

"Good evening, Andrew," he said, slightly amused by the perplexed expression on Hamilton's face.

"Lucius did warn you that I was taking his place, didn't he?"

Shaking hands, Hamilton replied a bit coldly, "Indeed, I got the message. Follow me. You'll be pleased to know that we have inherited one of the worst tables for a quiet evening."

Internally, Bruce shuddered at the thought, but it was with his usual relaxed smile that he followed him between the tables, stopping here and there to shake hands.

At less than a few feet from his destination, Bruce's smile fainted, and he exhaled very slowly to control an urge to fly away. Who could have had the crazy idea to put together the old Harold from Gotham Oil and Komeiovski from Petroleum Gas- two loudmouths and pig-headed personages used to argue about nothing and anything - at the same table?

This was not a sacrifice. This was a diving right into Hell.

With great effort Bruce forced his smile to appear again and greeted the other seven people standing around the table, feeling his headache resurfacing with a vengeance.

He had just freed himself from the iron grip of the Russian when a more delicate but quite firm hand seized his own. Afraid to crush it, he hastily lightened his grasp while he turned his head toward the owner.

Bruce paused, breath taken away by the intensity of the blue, almond-shape eyes of the woman standing in front of him.

"Bruce, let me present you Talia Makhanji," Hamilton said with a smirk, "The owner of IndEnergy."

"Pleased to meet you, Miss Makhanji," Bruce replied, a now genuine smile lighting his gaze.

"My pleasure, Mr. Wayne."

In her late twenties, dressed in a traditional black sari with golden embroidery, her very long black hair was partially attached in a chignon before falling over her right shoulder like silk. She looked like the most delicate daughter of a Maharajah.

"Don't be fooled by her porcelain face, Bruce!" Hamilton warned, seeing his eyes gleaming under her charms. "She's quite tough when it comes to business, believe me," he added, giving Bruce's shoulder a friendly tap.

Bruce straightened and managed to hide a wince of pain. "Impressive," he said, offering her a seat.

"Not at all. I've done nothing to deserve this position. I'm just doing my best to keep my family's heritage its right place," she replied with a shy smile.

Sitting down in the seat next to hers, Bruce cast her a discreet glance and frowned when he perceived a certain sadness in her eyes.

"Don't be so modest, Miss Makhanji!" cried out the old Harold, "Since your arrival, your company has propelled itself to the top of the bio-energy sector and is now challenging crumbly mastodons," he added, with a smirk as he briefly cast a look at Komeiovski.

_The first strike..._ Bruce mentally sighed as Harold went on.

"Isn't it Victor? According to the last news, IndEnergy's last hybrid central seems to be in a far better position than your _polluting_ central for the supplying of electricity for one of the major cities of India. Forgive me for not trying to pronounce its name, my dear!"

"Visakhapatnam," specified the young woman just as a waiter approached them with the starter.

"Gas is less polluting than oil, Harold, and you perfectly know it! Do we really have to argue once more on this subject?"

While the two men started their usual fight on which of their respective industry was less polluting and which would disappear first, Bruce turned his attention back on the young lady.

"The Gulf of Bengal. Beautiful area."

"You know India, Mr. Wayne?" Talia Makhanji asked, visibly surprised.

"I spent a little time there. Not enough, to my great regret. It's one of the rare places on Earth where I really felt at peace."

"Unfortunately, peaceful is not exactly the term I would use for my country, but I see what you mean. Some places there do have strong influence on the people visiting them."

"Did you hear the last rumor, Bruce?"

"I heard many today, Harold," Bruce said, briefly turning his head toward the Gotham Oil president.

"Well, your lack of reaction shows you didn't hear all of them. Batman's dead!"

Bruce shuddered, feeling strangely annoyed. The Tumbler's dive into the ocean could only have caused such rumors. He had anticipated it, and he had even planned to capitalize on the situation to put some personalities under watch, expecting that a few would drop their guard. But he just had a hope that his evening would finally not be as painful as expected. For once, could Batman stay out? Obviously, the answer was no.

"I don't buy it!" Harold continued.

"The waters where his tank had sunk are very deep," Hamilton replied, perplexed.

"Exactly, it's the reason why no rescue opera-"

"Recovery, Harold, rescue is when the person is still alive!" Komeiovski cut with enthusiasm.

"Whatever, they won't find his body, so we'll have no proof he's dead."

While the conversation went on, Bruce exchanged a silent glance with Miss Makhanji.

"Do you think Batman has drowned body and soul, Mr. Wayne? Or is this just another trick?" she asked him, her blue eyes staring at him with an intensity that unbalanced him.

"I liked him though," Harold said, raising his glass for a solemn toast. "If he's really dead, then shall God have pity of his soul."

Taking advantage of this latter intervention to escape the woman's eyes, Bruce cast a look at the others and felt quite surprised when more glasses raised into the air. Even Komeiovski joined the toast, although he did it with a grumble.

Imitating the others, Bruce drank to Batman's death, a cold weight in the pit of his stomach. This was a bit too close to assist to one's burial and felt very disturbing.

A brief silence ensued, during which Bruce stared at his half empty glass of wine.

"Do you think Batman thought he had been entrusted with a divine mission?" Miss Makhanji asked, reopening the conversation.

"They all think that!" Komeiovski exclaimed.

"Who they?"

"Psychopaths, Harold!"

"Batman was no psych-"

Bruce sighed and shook his head. Becker and Komeiosvki were about to succeed where the Mob and GCPD had failed until now.

"And you, Bruce, what do you think?" Hamilton asked, sending also a desperate glance at the arguing duo.

"I think that nobody can lie, be cruel or depraved, and say that he has God at his side," he replied with a sad smile before hastily averting his eyes away from Miss Makhanji's glance, cold sweat running down his spine.

_What the hell are you doing here quoting Gandhi?_ His mind screamed, outraged. _This is not Bruce Wayne! At least, not the Bruce Wayne you want them to know! _

Feeling suddenly exhausted, Bruce couldn't hide a wince when a shooting pain pierced his temples. He would probably have to stand down patrolling tonight and only focus on researches on Nimanec's past. Alfred had told him earlier that he suspected CamTech's founder to be a scientist siphoned off by the CIA at the end of the war in the Balkans, and he wanted to dig the question. With a silent swear, he discreetly took two pills out of the bottle in his pocket and swallowed them with water.

"Are you feeling all right, Bruce?"

Not aware that he had momentarily zoned out, Bruce turned his head toward Hamilton.

"Hmm yeah... Just a party last night that ended a bit too late. Sorry," he replied with a forced smirk, trying to behave again as _Bruce Wayne_.

Half an hour later, it was with a certain relief that Bruce perceived the waiters removing the plates. He turned his head toward the stage and straightened to stand up for the speech. But a sudden dizzy spell forced him to sit back.

Bruce gasped and felt his heart jumping in his chest at the sudden sight of the Joker, playing with his knife near Miss Makhanji's throat. He blinked twice and a waiter appeared in place of the hallucination.

"Bruce? Are you feeling all right?" the young woman asked, worry in her voice.

With dread, Bruce saw the Joker making faces while he cut Komeiovski's throat. Blood flooded on the white tablecloth, creating a pond which started to boil until a plant with large, red blooms emerged.

_Just an hallucination_, Bruce told himself, feeling sweat pearling on his forehead. On the edge of panicking, he forced himself to take a deep breath to ease his erratic breathing.

"If you'll excuse me," he said, standing up while the Joker was cutting the guests's throat one after the other.

To control his nerves and keep himself from running out of the dinner room took a great deal of effort, but once he was in the hallway, he moved quickly toward the bathrooms further down on his right.

The door slammed onto the wall as Bruce entered and immediately opened the tap to splash cold water on his face. He recognized the effect of the blue poppy toxin, but how had he come into contact with it? He had breathed the same air as everyone...

As a wave of nausea hit him, Kate's words at CamTech gala resurfaced. When he had asked her what she was doing in Gotham, he had not given more thoughts on her answer. Of course she was not investigating about the debilitating side effects of painkillers when mixed with alcohol. Although right now, this answer suddenly had a real and scary resonance.

Bruce's hand searched for the bottle of painkillers in his pocket as a dreadful realization hit him. He had not breathed the toxin. He had swallowed it, several times. How many pills had he taken? Six? Bruce swore out loud as another fearful question rose to his mind. Who had tampered with Kate's pills and why?

Covered by the sound of the water, Bruce did not hear the door creaking open nor did he hear Miss Makhanji's voice worriedly calling him. What he saw was the Joker's blurry face in the mirror.

Out of instinct, Bruce turned and launched his fist to the sociopath, but his arm was dodged and his momentum used against him. Violently dragged forward, Bruce lost his balance when a kick hit him behind his right knee and sent him crashing hard on the ground, right on his wounded shoulder. As he slid head first into a wall, pain exploded, and a dark, heavy veil fell on his vision.


	19. Ch 17

_**Gotham City - South Hinkley Island**_

**_July 27, 2009 - __8:35pm_**

* * *

As he climbed the stairs leading to his townhouse entrance, Commissioner Gordon cast a look at the cloudless sunset. Appeased by the spectacle of a warm, orange coat falling on the city, he let out a long sigh of exhaustion, thinking that at least during summer time he could get the impression he was coming back home at a decent hour.

Gordon opened the door, trying to shake off all the stress of his day. But the cold stone in the pit of his stomach would not go away so easily, and when he entered into the small entry, he was feeling even more weary than usual.

Though his instinct was telling him that Batman's vehicle dive into the ocean was certainly one of his risky tricks to escape the police, he could not help but remember the last time the Dark Knight had given him the scare of his life, and had some difficulty to control an urge to call the Wayne Manor to check that the Prince of Gotham was fine. In this case, he wanted to believe that no news meant good news.

Damn! Since he had discovered the Batman's identity two years ago, dealing with his reckless behavior was a nightmare. He still had some trouble to accept that the little boy who had been sitting once in Captain's Loeb's office had grown up into a dangerous man. Probably because Bruce's frightened eyes back then still reminded him of Jimmy's terrified gaze as Dent pointed his gun on his head.

Had this dreadful experience done as much damage on his son as witnessing his parents' murder had done on the Prince of Gotham? He hope not. But in his worry for the Dark Knight, there was definitively his own worry for Jimmy, mixing with the coldness of the hardened cop he was.

What Wayne had chosen to do with his life concerned him only, he had no word to say in the matter. All he could was taking the opportunity the Batman was giving him to fight criminality using means the law forbid him to use, and protect Gotham's citizens.

Though that did not do much to ease the painful knot that tightened his entrails.

Weary, Gordon took off his jacket, and unlaced his shoes, and opened the internal door, causing a pleasant smell of warm lasagna to rise to his nostrils.

His stomach gurgling, Gordon walked down the long corridor toward the kitchen, raising an eye toward the first level, almost expecting to hear Jimmy's rapid steps climbing down the stairs before jumping on his back with a cry of joy. His little boy had not done that for a long time... neither had Babs's frail arms clung around his neck. _You're pricking me daddy!_

Relaxed by the cheerful memories, Gordon entered in the kitchen with a slight smile on his face.

"Hey! It's been awhile since you granted us the honor of your presence at dinner!" Barbara said, putting the plate of lasagna on the kitchen island.

"Everything happens," he answered, taking his wife in his arms and kissing her on the neck. Her skin's perfume and warmth was all he needed to feel better. "Where are the kids?" he asked, a drop of hope that they would be alone tonight.

His wife turned around and put her arms around his neck, eyes gleaming.

"Babs is at her Taekwondo class until ten, and Jimmy's at Evan's. They have a school project to finish for tomorrow, so he's sleeping there tonight."

"Two full hours of freedom..." he whispered, holding his wife closer in his arms.

He was removing Barbara's kitchen apron with an idea not to stop there when his cell phone rang.

In a matter of seconds, the tension in the room reached an unbearable summit.

Taking the phone out of its strap, Gordon cast a quick glance on the screen, briefly closed his eyes, and took a long breath. What with Batman's dive into the ocean, and because of the last development in what was now CamTech's affair, he could not ignore Montoya's call.

"I'm sorry..." he whispered, feeling his heart constricting by the sight of anger and hurt in Barbara's eyes.

Stepping away, Gordon let out a sigh of deep frustration as he heard his wife's steps fading away in the corridor and up the stairs. Slowly but surely the job was taking its toll on their marriage. And he could not blame her; Barbara had already endured more than any cop's wife would have without running away.

"What's going on?"

A few seconds later, Gordon sighed, relieved that it was not about Batman's body found on a shore.

"Hold on a sec," he said, heading toward the television to turn it on to GCN as his lieutenant was asking him to do.

On screen, an aerial view of the convention center appeared.

"Fuck..." he cursed, briefly closing his eyes and pinching the bridge of his nose. The Annual Energy Symposium. They had kept the meeting place and date as quiet as possible not to trigger any ecologist movement. The mayor had been quite adamant in the fact that they had to keep Gotham clean of the kind of trouble that usually surrounded such important meetings and he had seen through all details of the security for the evening. He had been confident that everything was under control before heading back home.

A close-up on the front entrance of the center appeared, and Gordon frowned, unconsciously stepping closer, too.

"What the hell is that?" he whispered, all blood leaving his face while he stared with wide eyes at the screen.

The whole first level was covered by strange creepers with large red blooms that pointed threateningly at the police officers trying to get closer. Suddenly one man fell on the ground, rolling uncontrollably. The camera shook a bit as it readjusted on him. Hands clenched over his face, he was yelling in pain while his comrades were dragging him away, eyes wide with terror.

"Cordon off the area immediately. I'm on my way," he said before hanging up and leaving the house in haste, not without a twinge of sadness.

oOo

Ten minutes later Gordon stopped his car on the vast central platform in front of the Convention Center main entrance, illuminated by the blue and red rotating lights of the police patrols and ambulances. In the distance sirens echoed, signaling that more forces converged toward the site.

As he stepped out of his car, Gordon raised an anxious glance at the building. His eyes widened out of shock. The plants now covered a third of the building.

He was making his way inside the crowd of paramedics and police officers, casting a worried glance at a policeman on a stretcher with bloodied dressings on his face when he heard Montoya's voice calling him.

Gordon turned his head to his right and caught sight of the lieutenant standing in front of a long SWAT bus, waving him to come inside the vehicle.

"Can someone tell me what the hell is that thing? And don't tell me plants! Plants just don't do that!" he snapped, haunted by the sight of the wounded officer while his Cartesian mind still refused to acknowledge what his eyes had seen.

Sitting behind the computer console, Bullock turned a frightened look toward him, a look that was visible on all the livid faces of the police officers inside the unit.

Gordon briefly looked down and sighed, embarrassed to have barked at his men.

"Okay... I understand we can't get in, so I need a way to communicate with someone inside to know what's their situation," he asked, still having a slight hope that this was just one giant nightmare and that he was going to wake up, breathless and cover in sweats, in his office.

"The mayor has been warned?"

"He's on his way," Montoya said before turning her eyes toward the computer. "You should see this, Commissioner," she added, pointing with her finger at one of the computers. "It just appeared on the Twitter and Facebook pages of the city."

_When the trees in a forest have grown in an uncontrollable way and are suffocating the smallest, weakest plants, endangering its own survival, fire is Nature's answer. Burnt to the ground, the old trees will feed the earth and soon, a new forest will rise, stronger._

_Relinquish your harmful ways of living or share old forests fate._

_POISON IVY_

"There's a link directing toward the website of an ecologist movement," Montoya added, clicking on it. In a new window, an internet website appeared with Nature For Life written in green, bold, capital letters.

"This is a hostage situation... Do we have a list of all the persons trapped inside?" Gordon shuddered, running a nervous hand through his hair while he read again the warning.

"Here, but there's no demand for ransom," Bullock said, shaking his head of disarray as he gave him a long listing of names.

Gordon's eyes quickly scanned the list, then went back on the screen to read the warning. "Fire... Fuck! Call the anti bomb squad," he exclaimed, feeling his heart rate increasing a notch at the thought that the building could be booby-trapped.

Bullock nodded and immediately taking out his cell phone. "How will it be of any help if we can't get in?" the lieutenant asked while he waited for the communication to establish.

"I want the Hazmat brigade, too, and warn the CDC to come ASAPwith a botanical specialist, if they have one..." Gordon added before turning back his gaze on the website.

"What do we have on NFL's movement? Is it on INTERPOL's black list of eco-terrorist organizations, or are we looking at a whole new terrorist group here? Find everything you can so we know who's hiding behind this name," Gordon said, turning away toward all the other officers in the unit.

"All attention please. We have a crisis situation on our hands and a damn serious one. I don't want anyone to talk to the press about this new group and their claim. Is that clear?"

Grave nods and whispered 'yes, sir' answered all around.

"Commissioner, we just got a call from Wayne Enterprises saying that Bruce Wayne is attending the meeting in place of their CEO," Montoya said, giving him a post-it with a phone number.

Gordon felt his eyes widening, but quickly put his facial expressions under control.

"For the one time our billionaire playboy was serious, he had to be taken hostage..." he sighed, taking out his cell phone to dial the number on the paper, hoping that the vigilante was in position to offer some support.


	20. Ch 18

_**Gotham City - Convention Center**_

_**July 27, 2009 - 9:43 pm**_

* * *

Barely aware that he was lying flat on his stomach on a hard, cold ground, Bruce was fighting to stay conscious, despite the fact that his head was hurting as if the most heavy ax ever had crashed on him.

A moan of pain escaped his lips when he rolled on his side to cast a look at his surroundings. The bright light coming from the ceiling inlayed spotlights burned his pupils as surely as white-hot needles.

As he had a hard time controlling a wave of nausea, the hair on his neck bristled in alarm, urging him to fight the dark abyss that had a grasp on him.

Jaw clenched, he was painfully raising on an elbow when a voice behind him sounded.

"You're a very demanded man, Mr. Wayne."

The cold tone was as efficient to wake him up as an icy shower.

His heart beating wild in his chest, Bruce forced his stiff muscles to move, and, taking support on the nearby wall, he stood up.

Alarmed to feel so weak, he turned his head toward the person who had just spoken, almost expecting to find again the Joker's scarred face viciously smiling at him.

But it was not him.

Gasping, Bruce blinked several times to clarify the edges of his field of vision. It was then that he recognized, leaning against the washstand, the beautiful owner of IndEnergy.

But the angel vision stopped here. She was aiming a gun at him.

Bruce took a deep breath, trying to understand why his hallucination would show Talia Makhanji in such a position. Knowing her for a couple of hours could not make her eligible for his worst fears. Hell, if he had to think of his feelings toward her, it was rather the opposite. She had been a breath of fresh air this evening.

As Bruce tried to determine if he was still under the toxin influence, two buzzing objects flew toward him in rapid sequence.

By reflex, he caught his cell phones, and cast a look at the screens. Something important was happening as both were displaying an in-coming call from Gordon.

Having no choice but to answer the official call in front of a woman whose angry stare made him shudder, Bruce put his _night_ phone inside his pocket.

"Bruce Wayne," he said, not averting his eyes from the woman.

Now that she was looking at him that way, Miss Makhanji's face was strangely familiar, and during a brief moment, he wondered to whom she was aiming her gun at.

Bruce Wayne or Batman?

"Good evening, Commissioner. What can I do for you?"

Bruce winced. Not only Gordon was overheard, but he was too. Well, all he had to do was pushing his playboy act a bit further than usual. Gordon would notice.

_Aside from having a gun aimed at my head? _"Nope, nothing's wrong, Commissioner. May I ask why?" he asked, worried.

At the Commissioner's answer, Bruce sent an alarmed glance at the bathroom's door. A hostage situation? All exits blocked, possibly booby-trapped? What the hell was going on?

"Er... right now?... Hmm... in the bathrooms, so I can't really tell you, but we were about to go back into the reception hall. I'll call you from there if you wish."

If a gun was not aimed at his head, the Commissioner's next answer would have made him smile. "Oh... okay. If you say so, we'll stay here and wait for reinforcements then," he said, terminating the communication.

Gordon had discovered his true identity, an icy evening in the Narrows two years ago. He had saved his life, and had taken a load off his shoulder in the painful days that had followed. Without his help, his career, both as vigilante and businessman would have stop dramatically.

In front of him, Talia slightly shook her head with an expression of despair and disgust on her face.

"What a good play," she said. "I'm sure your Commissioner is still light years away from guessing to whom he just spoke."

Bruce shuddered. _Batman, then._

"Gordon is more intelligent than you think."

Not only did her height and weight corresponded to the commando he had fought against at CamTech, but what kind of woman wearing a tight Sari could have the ability to dodge his punch and send him flying head first in a wall? The list was very short. So short that the only logical answer was making his heart beating to break free in his chest.

"Look, there's a hostage situation going on, so either you shoot now, or you let me go check on the people inside the reception hall," he said calm but determined.

As Bruce turned to go, a shot reverberated against the tiled walls, and he felt a burning stream of air brushing his right temple. Four feet in front of him, ceramic shards flew when a bullet dug into the wall.

Blood pounding in his ears, Bruce stopped and cast a look above his shoulder.

"Being your father's daughter, I trust you can do better."

"How do you know..." she whispered as he pushed the door.

"Who you are?" he finished for her. "You have his stare."

As the bathroom's door closed smoothly behind him, Bruce closed his eyes, and let out a long sigh.

Ducard's daughter, here in Gotham...

His old mentor and enemy had told him once that only his mission on Earth and his daughter's unconditioned love kept him alive, giving him the strength to go through his nightmares.

The same way Rachel had seen him through his own demons.

Had losing her father been as tough for her as losing Rachel had been for him? Losing his parents... _Of course it had been_, he cursed, feeling his entrails being crushed under the weight of guilt.

_Now is not the time_, he berated himself.

Putting his pain aside, he cast a worried glance around him, scanning the vast mezzanine for any sign of armed intruders. However, the place was empty and quiet. There was absolutely no sign whatsoever that a hostage situation was on-going.

His back brushing against the wall, Bruce quickly covered half the distance separating him from the reception hall entrance and stopped in a recess. By reflex, he tested the door on his left, but it was locked.

Careful, he then cast a look toward the reception hall entrance, thirty feet further.

Bruce felt his hair on his neck bristling as he realized that the silence reigning inside the Convention Center was not as total as he had first perceived.

In the background, a faint scraping that had nothing to do with the mechanical sound of the air blown out the ventilation grid could be heard.

Trying to spot its origin, Bruce's gaze fell on a large artificial tree standing next to the reception hall door.

Silently, he moved away from the wall to get a clearer view at the doors and the two ornamental trees standing on either side.

His eyes widened of fear and incomprehension when he saw creepers growing out of the pots and covering the whole entrance in an unnatural tangle similar to the ones that had invaded CamTech's rooftop greenhouse the previous night. Although, what was new here was a large, dark mass suspended a few feet above the ground in front of the doors. A creepy, dark mass from which a hand protruded.

"Oh my God..."

Startled, Bruce turned his head away and saw Talia stopping at his side. If he had needed any other proof that she was a Shadow, her silent steps would have confirmed just that.

"There's someone inside," she exclaimed just as the hand was swallowed inside the cocoon.

A thin, golden dagger in hand, Talia moved forward.

"Step back!" Bruce cried when he saw a large red flower suddenly growing from a creeper just above the cocoon. As it rattled, very sharp teeth appeared, and a cloud of gas was suddenly released.

Out of instinct, Bruce attracted Talia against him and shielded her from the gas with his back.

"Let's go," he cried, dragging her toward the escalators while more flowers blossomed behind them.

Upon reaching the edge of the mezzanine, Bruce cast a look down, and stopped them brutally.

The whole first floor looked like a dried mangrove.

Rising from every pot, creepers grew, intertwining each other to form larger trunks that climbed toward the mezzanine and latched on the guardrails.

As Gordon's words echoed in his mind like a death sentence, Bruce stared at the glass-wall facade of the Convention Center.

As high he could see, creepers covered the building, while inside the place was being transformed into an inhospitable jungle of carnivorous plants.

"Your jacket! It's giving off fumes!" Talia suddenly cried.

Bruce snatched his head to look at the back of his arm and shuddered. As his body felt like one huge bruise, he had ignored the stinging sensation coming from this arm, but indeed, the fabric was dissolving.

His jaw tightly clenched, Bruce quickly got rid of his jacket, threw it on a flower that had just appeared on the guardrail in front of them, and tried to identify their closest way to escape.

But everywhere his eyes looked, creepers were coming out of every corridor and stairs. They were surrounded.

"In here!" Talia said, pointing to the recess giving on the mechanical room where he had stopped earlier.

Quickly, they crossed the mezzanine back toward the reception hall. While Talia kneeled in front of the door, removed two pins from her hair, and worked to unlock the door, Bruce kept a nervous eye on the carnivorous plants. A metallic click sounded a few seconds later, and they rushed inside the dark room with relief.

Groping, Bruce found the light switch. Barely a hundred square feet, the room was filled with shelves full of household products, electric sweepers, buckets, and rags.

"What are you doing?" Talia asked when he climbed on the shelves.

"I'm going to check on the people inside," Bruce replied, removing a ventilation grid, and casting a quick glance inside the shaft.

Bruce cursed. Used to seeing through the deepest darkness, the thought of crawling inside a narrow space not knowing if he would meet more of these creepy plants spitting corrosive gas was freaking the hell out of him. But staying in the mechanical room doing nothing was not an option.

Wishing for his armor and sonar, Bruce hauled himself inside and started to crawl on his forearms and tip toes.

Behind him, Talia escaped what he supposed was a curse in Hindi before following him inside.

His situation made him shudder, and he shook his head. Great! If the plants did not kill him, the woman on his heels still might.

As the darkness became complete, fear painfully knotted Bruce's guts for the first time in many months, and he had to stiffen a strong feeling of claustrophobia that urged him to extricate himself from this trap A.S.A.P.

_The hostages first_, he thought, calling himself back to order. Getting used to the darkness, he now could detect a faint halo of light less than twenty feet in front of him. A secondary ventilation shaft going into the reception hall, he hoped, moving faster.

Upon reaching it, Bruce flattened his body against one side of the conduit, and looked toward Talia. Now was the time to test her intentions.

"That's too small for me to crawl in," he whispered.

He did not hear any reply, but a few seconds later a hiss of pain escaped through his clenched teeth when her body tried to crawl over his. Not having enough space, she started to wriggle in order to gain inches on him, not embarrassing her where she put her elbows and knees.

Biting his lip to stiffen cries of pain as she dug in a sensible part of his anatomy, Bruce tried to flatten even more against the conduit.

After a few more painful movements, Talia managed to un-jam them with a sudden movement that sent her elbow colliding with his nose. Tasting blood in his mouth, Bruce raised one hand in protection over his face, and with the other, he grasped her leg, and pushed her away, receiving a kick in his wounded shoulder as she finally entered in the smaller conduit.

Wondering if she had done all this deliberately, Bruce rolled on his stomach with a moan, now definitely wishing for his armor.

He had just managed to ease his breathing when he heard her coming back.

"They're alive, but we can't do anything for them," she announced coldly, starting to crawl over him again.

Not willing to let her reiterate the maneuver, Bruce blocked her way.

"What do you mean?"

"A crazy ecologist group must be behind this. The screen was down and a presentation was ongoing saying 'Nature has enough to be destroyed. Work together to find a solution to save Earth from pollution, or die at the hand of her soldiers'."

"Soldiers?"

"Plants. All the exits are heavily guarded by more of these _things,_" she said as she turned a worried glance behind her.

As both held their breath to listen to their surroundings, Bruce cursed. A scraping sound was growing louder and louder.

"Let's move now," Bruce said, imagining a bunch of creepers heading their way.

As quickly as possible, they crawled back, not bothering themselves anymore on being discreet.

When he reached the junction leading to the mechanical room, Bruce checked that it was clear of creepers and slid his legs into it, just enough to allow him to turn himself.

Talia took the opportunity to pass by him, and Bruce cast a quick look on their rear.

In the dim halo of light coming from the secondary shaft where they had stopped a little earlier, a creeper appeared, turning its head from right to left as if it were a snake tasting its surrounding to find its prey.

A shudder ran down Bruce's spine and prompted him to join back with Talia. At least now he was crawling head first.

A few sharp turns and connections with smaller shafts later, the racket of air being blown into a larger conduit ahead grew louder and louder, covering all other sounds.

Blind and deaf, having no idea if the creeper chasing them was still on their heels, Bruce and Talia hastened their movements, trying not to yield to panic.

"Up or down?" Talia shouted, suddenly stopping.

"Down!" Bruce cried, acting on a hunch.

The Convention Center had been built at the site of an old steelwork, but all of its warehouses and buildings had not been destroyed. It was possible that their basements might still connect, offering them with an exit. And even if it was not the case, with a little chance the strong stream of air in the vertical conduit would keep the creeper from smelling them, throwing its snake-like sensors off.

Feeling his stitches put to severe test, Bruce slid inside the shaft, hands and feet pressing on the sides to control his fall. Even if it could not go deeper than fifty feet, not being able to see where it ended bothered him as it forced him to brace for impact at any other moment.

Talia's collision against the ventilation grid gave him a warning that they had reached the bottom of the

conduit.

Bruce contracted all his muscles and pressed hard against the side to slow down and to allow her a little time to clear the landing zone. Hands burning, he got out of the conduit a few seconds later.

As he crouched on the ground, Bruce quickly checked if he could roll to absorb his fall. But the presence of a huge furnace less than four feet in front of him and the heat he could feel on his back told

him that the place was too cramped for that.

Clenching his teeth to bear the pain, Bruce put one hand on the ground to keep his balance.

On his left, Talia had managed to roll away on his left and was already up, busying herself to wrap her sari more tightly around her waist, revealing the short, tight, strapless top she worn beneath.

"Are you okay?" she asked him, a hint of worry in her voice contradicting with the daggers that her eyes still threw at him.

Bruce blinked and quickly straightened himself, noticing with dread that he had been staring at her.

"I'm fine," he replied as he stood up and looked around for the closest exit.

"Sure, once bleeding was considered a cure. You can only get better then," came the answer behind him.

Jaw clenched, Bruce ignored the sarcasm, and headed toward the evacuation plan hung next to the doors and took it down, determined to find a way out of this nightmare.

Stifling and sweating profusely in an over-heated basement, Bruce and Talia meticulously explored the place, opening each door, checking every storage and maintenance closet, walking between boxes, furniture, decorations, unused equipments in search for an exit.

They were in a small workshop when Talia suddenly dragged a shelf, revealing a metallic door, although there was no handle.

Bruce cast a glance on the evacuation plan, and, with a sigh of relief, he took out his night duty cell phone.

A few seconds later, Alfred's voice weakly crackled in his ears.

"I need you to open a fire door for me... Alfred? Do you hear me?"

Bruce repeated his message several times but the static was too important, and quickly enough, he lost the network.

With a curse, he moved back into the corridor and tried to re-establish the connection without success.

"We're trapped," he sighed, joining Talia in the workshop. After a moment, he leaned his back against the fire door, and with a wince of pain, slid to sit down on the ground. Sweat was running down his eyes, and even without his armor, the heat stroke was not far away.

In front of him, Talia walking in circles like an enraged lion in a cage made him shudder as Alfred's most recurrent warning resurfaced. If he did not take the needed time to heal properly, sooner or later, he would find himself in a situation where he would be too weak to defend himself.

Had his time come and Ducard's daughter's hand going to give him the final blow? he wondered, chuckling sadly in front of fate's irony as he refused even the thought to do what was needed to ensure his survival.

"If you came here seeking vengeance, then go ahead. I'll do nothing to keep you from soothing your heart," he said, closing his eyes.

Talia briefly stopped walking to stare at him. Anger was burning in her eyes. Cursing, she sat on the ground at good distance.

A heavy silence fell, during which both stared at an invisible spot in front of them.

"Did my father never mention the Wu to you?"

Surprised, Bruce's eyes fluttered open, and he nodded silently.

Ducard had told him about the ancient triad that had once been part of the League.

More than a millennium ago, the League's leader's closest fellow, Wong Wu, had voiced his disagreement against their methods, claiming that there were less violent ways to fight against criminality.

Discreetly, he had gathered some followers and presented his new strategy in front of the Council. Unfortunately, the Master had flatly refused Wu's proposal, protesting that fighting the enemy with its own weapons, including corruption, would cause the League to lose its soul.

A violent argument had ensued during which the Master had killed his closest fellow in an access of dark ire.

The question was shelved, but the seeds of dissension had been planted. At the death of the Master, the new one was not able to unite the Council, and the League had shattered into two entities.

The new one took the name of the fellow Shadow that had been at the origin of the scission, and became the Wu, giving birth, like the Master had predicted, to the most ancient and feared triad.

"My father trusted that under your governance, the League would finally be whole again, but instead, you killed him and sent the message to the Wu to finish the work."

Bruce shuddered, feeling a twinge of sadness constraining his heart.

Knowing this story had prompted him to act more violently than the young Wu. In a certain way, he had finished the work that Wu had begun centuries ago.

"I believed that the Wu had disappeared, themselves shattered in several hundreds of triads until complete dissolution," Bruce said, wondering if there was another reason aside from Wu's betrayal to bring up the subject.

"The Wu are masters in the art of deception. The original triad still exists, and the fact is, despite what my father wanted to believe, the League was very close to being annihilated by them. You just hastened its fate."

Bruce sighed and briefly looked down when he saw a flash of pain flooding her eyes with tears. Although he did not regret his actions concerning the League of Shadows, being confronted by their consequences was awaking the wounds that had set him long ago on this path.

As he shared her pain, the once clear goal that had motivated him to fight criminality and become Batman started to fade in shades of blood.

"The League doesn't exist anymore. The year following my father's operation here, most of our fellow agents all over the world were killed. Some disappeared. A few accepted the change of leadership," Talia stopped, and Bruce saw a flash of anger in her eyes.

"To hide their own criminal activities, the Wu are now using the League's visit card to set all the police agencies on a ghost chase. The last one being the murder of a British diplomat that had discovered a Wu mole in their own ranks."

The revelation of this piece of news made Bruce straightened.

"Why were you in CamTech yesterday night?" he asked, wincing of pain as he felt his heart rhythm increasing again.

"Because that's where the traitor led me," she replied, looking at him with worried eyes.

Bruce stared at her, eyes wide. What was she telling him? That Kate was in fact working for the Wu? _This makes no sense_, he told himself, blinking when pearls of sweat ran down his eyes.

"Let me see your wound now," she said, moving toward him.

Their eyes met, and she briefly stopped.

"Believe me, if I wanted to kill you, you'd be dead by now," she told him, kneeling against his right side and lifting his shirt to cast a look at his stab wound.

"Remove your shirt," she said, wincing at the sight of the bloodied bandaged.

Soaked with sweat and blood, it did not hold in place anymore, letting his red, swollen flesh appear.

A shudder ran down Bruce's spine when he felt her body brushing against his as she helped him to extract himself from the shirt. The musky sent of her own perspiration intoxicated his senses, and he was not sure anymore that only pain kept him to control his breathing.

As he was taking his arm out of the sleeve, Talia reached for her dagger, and cut a large strip in the shirt.

"Lift a bit from the wall," she told him, trying to slide the makeshift bandage behind his back.

The pain made him arch his back, pushing his chest against her. Automatically, Bruce recoiled, but Talia kept him from leaning back on the wall.

"Stay still!" she told him, striding over his thigh to hold him better as she wrapped the bandage tight above his wound.

Breathing erratically, Bruce closed his eyes_. Too tight,_ he thought as she tightened the knot directly on the wound to keep the maximum of pressure on it. Hissing of pain, Bruce automatically seized her waist to push her away as a dizzy spell hit him.

"Stay awake, Bruce!" Talia cried, holding his head between her hands.

Bruce suddenly opened his eyes, only to fall in her clear blue eyes. As he noticed the warm contact of her delicate hands on his face, fear slowly faded into fragility, and into deep desire to form one when their lips touched.


	21. Ch 19

****AN: I modified the first part of the story to remove the 'one chapter=one day' structure. I also removed some paragraphs here and there that finally brought nothing to the story, and corrected the ones with Gordon to make the story coherent with 'Diving into icy darkness'. From now on, I'll only post chapters that have been beta-readed, so you can expect an update twice a month on this story.

* * *

**Gotham City - Basement of the Convention Center**

**July 28, 2009 – 5:48 am**

* * *

Insisting, reverberating knocks on his skull snatched Bruce from his sleep.

Blood pounding painfully in his temples, Bruce took a few deep breaths to ease his heart rate, and after a certain time he realized that his splitting headache was not the cause of the racket that had woke him up.

Feeling his cold, sore muscles unwilling to do any movement, he stayed still for a moment, staring at a grey ceiling with suspended pipes that obviously was not the one of his bedroom, nor the cave's, although the ground was as uncomfortable.

Bruce cursed. He hated the disorientation and the numbness that came with being awaken while in deep sleep.

A disturbing tickling of a hand brushing his bare torso suddenly attracted his attention.

Raising his head, Bruce felt his heart jumping again in his chest when he saw Talia snuggled against his side, a leg over his thigh, while her sari, thrown as a sheet, barely covered their bodies.

Alfred's warning not to forget to live resurfaced in his mind, though for the first time his words got a soothing echo under the warm, steady breath blowing on his skin.

The knocks sounded again, snatching him from the peaceful vision. Someone was behind the door attempting to communicate with them.

As delicately as possible, Bruce extricated his arm from under Talia's body, and extended it to knock at his turn.

Reacting to his movements, Talia raised her head.

"The police?" she asked, kissing his chest and moving up to his neck.

"My own reinforcements," he said, returning the kiss, catching her caressing hand with a bit of regret.

As they quickly dressed, Bruce's eyes scanned the small storage room. With relief, he found it free of carnivorous plants.

"That's Morse code," Talia said, kneeling against the door to focus on the message.

"Hey!" she cried, "WE'RE HERE!"

But her calls did not stop the knocks, and Bruce shook his head saying, "The wall's too thick."

His eyes quickly scanned the shelves in search for a hammer or anything heavy enough to knock on the door. A few seconds later, he assessed the weight of a small spanner. Hoping it would be enough, he used it to transmit the only code he knew: SOS.

A very brief silence fell, and the knocks started again, faster this time.

"B...1... M...V...E... Z... E...C..." Talia said, a perplexed expression on her face, "That makes no sense. I must have missed a letter or two..."

Bruce sighed, and ran a nervous hand through his hair, feeling perplexed. Alfred would certainly not use a way to communicate he couldn't understand.

"Z...E...V," Talia said, "That's Z code!"

"What?"

"A three letter code created by the radio-telegraph and the military to communicate faster," Talia explained.

This eliminated the police, too. Codes within codes were a bit too elaborate for them. Bruce sighed. If not Alfred, not the police, then it left a last possibility: hostiles.

As Talia was about to knock something, Bruce caught her fist. "Careful. It might not be friendly," he warned.

Even if they had not seen any of the criminals responsible for the hostage taking, it did not mean that there were none, and that the persons behind the fire door were not bringing reinforcements, or developing another phase of their plan.

Talia nodded gravely just as the knocks sounded once more. "Z... EV again," she said, looking at him with worried eyes. "We have to reply something."

"Go ahead," he said, not liking their situation at all. Whatever they would knock, it was unlikely that it would be the correct signal.

"W... T... F," Talia said, knocking at the same time.

Bruce could not help but smirk at the mischievous gleam in her eyes.

A silence fell, increasing the tension during which Bruce was sure that his heart beats were loud enough to be heard on the other side of the fire door.

Suddenly, another series of knocks sounded. A very short series.

"C... 4..." Talia said before feeling her eyes widening as she read exactly the same realization on Bruce's glance. "C4?"

"Move!" Bruce cried, grabbing her arm to draw her away from the door.

"Wait! Let me knock OK so they know we understood and took cover."

Bruce waited for Talia to quickly knock her last message, grabbed her arm, and pushed her in front of him as they rushed out of the storage room into the corridor.

Twenty seconds later, a loud explosion reverberated, shaking the ground as if a strong earthquake had just hit Gotham.

As he covered Talia with his body, Bruce heard the door of the storage room crashing on the facing wall while shards of plaster fell on them. Coming from the storage room, a thick cloud of dust invaded the corridor, swarming over them as the neon lights flickered and died.

Coughing, Bruce cast a worry glance above him just as the sprinkler system went off, and poured cold waters on them.

"Are you okay?" he asked Talia, rolling away from her.

In the dim, red halo of light provided by the emergency lighting, he saw her removing a lock of hair from her face, and nod yes. Relieved, he helped her to her feet, flattened against the wall, and headed toward the storage room.

Through a shimmering mist of dust, he saw all the shelves crumbled on the ground, their contents scattered everywhere.

"Hey! Are you all right in there? Bruce, do you hear me?" a voice cried just as the beam of a flashlight appeared, coming from the large dark hole where the fire door had stood.

Recognizing Kate's voice, Bruce let out a sigh of relief.

"Unexpected help," he said to Talia before moving into the open. "We're fine!" he cried, raising a hand over his eyes when the beam suddenly blinded him.

Talia on his heels, Bruce climbed over the rubble, and stepped through the hole into a narrow, colder tunnel that made him shiver. Maybe a few hours earlier he would have wished for such a temperature, but now, soaked by the water from the sprinklers, the feeling was rather unpleasant.

"I guess your training never covered radio communications?" Kate said, slightly bending her head on her left to see who was coming behind him.

"Are there more people with you?" she asked as Talia joined them inside the tunnel.

"Unfortunately, no."

As a cloud of dust fell from the ceiling, Kate directed the beam of her flashlight overhead, a worried expression on her face.

Bruce winced at the sight of the cracked vault. "Explosives weren't exactly what that tunnel needed," he said, stepping aside to let Talia moving in front of him. The sooner they get out of here, the better he would feel. "Let's move to a safer place. We need to talk," he added, bothered by Talia's confession about following a traitor to CamTech.

As he followed both women in the dark maze of decrepit tunnels, corridors, and disused basements, Bruce searched in his mind what annoyed him, which detail from the night in Lhasa when they had escaped alive from the gunfight made him suddenly doubt that Kate was trustworthy.

In the darkness of the tunnel, the memory of the spartanly furnished room above the restaurant resurfaced.

He remembered averting his eyes to hide a brief smirk when the Chinese Triad leader and his three henchmen had come in, looking like kung-fu movie characters. So much for the _cliché_... though his smile had faded soon enough when he had seen the last man coming in and closing the door behind him.

Damn! All he had seen then had been a twelve or thirteen year old kid dressed like a killer, certainly not a female cop working undercover.

Black sunglasses over his eyes, hair so short that the skull had almost looked shaved, barely five feet five or six, an Uzi partially hidden under his black tunic. A soldier kid.

While the others sat around the table exchanging formalities, Bruce had discreetly observed the kid from the corner of his eyes, calm, at ease, in his element. The thought that he was born and raised in the criminal world had filled him with sadness and anger.

Bruce shook the thought away, as it was irrelevant now, and focused back on the instants that had preceded the gunfight.

Although he could not understand all that was said at the table, he had gotten the feeling that the negotiations between the two parties were going smoothly, the situation was under control. How wrong he had been.

Bruce frowned, remembering that the _kid_ had left his position of door watching a second before the shot had reverberated. Its echo was still vivid in his mind, as was the sound of the Triad leader's body collapsing to the ground, a dark hole between his eyes.

A few feet on his right, a metallic clatter sounded. He remembered the expression of confusion in his _partner's_ eyes as he lowered his head and stared at the gun at his feet.

And the next second, a flock of bullets riddled everything all around him.

Certain that his death had come, Bruce had thrown himself to the ground and crawled toward a torn armchair behind which the kid had already found shelter.

_The window!_ _Jump!_ The latter had suddenly cried out, dragging him by his collar, and firing a barrage with his Uzi to cover their escape.

Bruce took a deep breath as his body remembered the impact on the sidewalk, flooded under a foot of water, three floors down.

Slightly disoriented, he had raised to his feet after his roll in time to see the kid crashing next to him, flat on his back.

A wave of panic had seized him when he heard in the distance, the police sirens heading toward them. Without hesitation, he had hauled the kid back on his feet, and supporting him, they had run away.

Bruce shuddered, remembering what had come next, and how he had discovered Kate's subterfuge in the abandoned house where they had found shelter.

Feeling the half-unconscious kid shivering under his soaked clothes, he had just removed them in order to dry him and to check for injuries.

The feeling of uneasiness at the unexpected discovery resurfaced, but Bruce shook his head to chase it away. A more important one bothered him.

The young woman deeply asleep, wrapped in several layers of covers, he had searched her clothes for ID papers. Under the insole of her right boot, he had found a small plastic bag with a bus ticket for Kathmandu for the first hour next day and a luggage checkroom card.

Bruce clenched his jaw, shaking his head. How could he have missed that? Buses for Nepal did not depart every day.

Not only was she the one who had fired, a bit in retreat and in the shadows, the armchair had been well positioned for a discreet shot, but above all, she had planned this long ago to make it look like an illegal meeting turning awry.

A sudden bright luminosity jerked him back to the present.

Bruce cast a quick glance at the first floor of a void warehouse. Pigeons suddenly took off, lifting clouds of dust in the air that the sun rays filtering through the broken bay-windows made shimmering.

"You were at Kathmandu's British embassy. You're working for MI6, aren't you?"

Bruce suddenly raised his eyes, stunned by Talia's blunt question.

Kate slowed down and turned an angry glance toward him.

"Talia's working for RAW," he lied quickly to defuse the tension.

Raising an eyebrow in surprise, Kate shook her head and resumed her way, apparently biting the bait that Talia was a colleague from the Indian external intelligence agency.

"The hell if I know who I'm working for right now..." she muttered, a grave look on her face.

Bruce frowned, not sure he liked the answer. "What do you mean?"

"Just saying that to find you, I had to admit a few _mistakes _worthy of being court-martialed," she replied with a wince. "But don't worry for me. Being sent to a labor camp is the least of my concerns right now. Welcome to Gotham City," she added, opening an exit door giving on a parking lot invaded by weeds.

As he stepped out, the warmth of the sun on his skin did not bring Bruce much of a comfort.

Two hundred yards away, behind the line of trees that bordered the bike trail and the canal's shimmering waters, the once joyous colors of the Convention Center had completely disappeared under a dark brown and green military-like camouflage.

"Yeah I know..." Kate whispered, a wince of disgust on her face, "Feels a bit like Alice in Wonderland, fallen in the rabbit's hole."

Bruce silently stared at the building, wondering how this was possible while the tranquility around him, not abnormal for a Sunday morning, suddenly became fake, worrying. Definitely, this city was doomed to be the stage of the weirdest criminal machinations.

"Let's climb in the van before we attract _unnecessary_ attention," Kate said, heading toward her mobile unit parked only a few feet away along the warehouse.

Last to get in, Bruce closed the back door of the van behind him.

While his pupils dilated to adjust to the sudden change of luminosity, he detected a faint crackle coming from the surveillance equipment on his left.

"Did you check the police frequencies?" he asked while Kate was retrieving a box from under the passenger seat.

"I'll do it, thank you," Talia said, grabbing the medkit from her hands.

Kate slightly shrugged her shoulders, and turned back. "You'll find a spare T-shirt in Jack's bag here," she said, giving a small kick to the wide sport bag on the ground.

Bruce dragged the folding chair from under the desk, sat down, and cautiously removed the bloodied shirt tightened around his waist. A sigh of relief escaped his lips. It was not as worse as he had thought. Most of Alfred's stitches still held.

"They suspect a new ecoterrorist group is behind this," Kate said, collapsing on the driver seat with a sigh of exhaustion. "Though I think they're mistaken. The most dangerous groups on our watch list destroy fields of GMO crops or arson SUV dealers. Maybe with the exception of Green Peace, they are anarchist movements, without a chain of command, even a charismatic leader able to lead them through a complex operation such as hostage taking."

"So who do you think is behind this?" Talia asked, using a seemingly innocent tone that Bruce knew better than to trust.

"Each time an extreme scenario arose, a real terrorist organization was behind it. If you want my opinion, it could be the League of Shadows attempting to get rid of your city again," Kate replied just as Talia poured an antiseptic on his wound. Too much antiseptic.

Clenching his fingers on the edge of the desk, Bruce bit his lip to deaden a moan of pain. Slightly breathless, he cast a bothered look at both women. This was not the place.

"Kate! Take the Highway Ten South ramp, stay on the service lane until the junction with the Fourteen East," he said a bit harshly.

"Yes, sir," she replied, igniting the engine with a smirk.

As they headed toward his bunker, Talia silently finished dressing his wound, then moved to sit down in the passenger seat.

Bruce shuddered, feeling the tension slowly but surely rising in the cabin as they got closer to the bunker.

Talia could very well decide to do her own justice. Was it not the reason she had come to Gotham in the first place? To eliminate a traitor? Bruce took a deep breath, not certain that he would be able to face himself in a mirror again if his determination to know what had happened in Lhasa finished in bloodshed.

"Turn right at the next light and go to the end of the road. You can stop in front of the fence," Bruce said, a painful knot twisting his guts.

When Kate turned at the junction shortly after, the deserted street giving access to the pier where the bunker was looked like death row.

oOo

A few minutes later, the platform elevator stopped at the bottom of the hidden space underneath the docks.

As Talia followed him toward the island of computers in front of them, Bruce cast a glance above his shoulder. "Come and sit down Kate; you look like you're about to collapse," he said, turning on his systems.

"I'm fine," she muttered, staying in rearguard, looking all around her.

Bruce raised an eyebrow, biting his lips to keep him from replying that he was the Queen of England, as Alfred used to sarcastically tell him in this kind of circumstances.

"You seem a bit nervous," Talia said, as she leaned against the interactive table standing in the middle of the computers area.

Kate winced, "Put an explosive belt around your waist, and throw the trigger in a kindergarten. You'll tell me if you won't feel nervous."

"Lucius let you out of his grasp without finding an antidote?" Bruce asked, surprised.

"He let me out because I had easy access to systems he needed to localize you with precision and the means to extract you from there," Kate replied, modifying her path to head toward the nearby wall.

"Unless I touch the bad plant again, he said I should be safe," she added, wincing as she took support on the wall to crouch, and sat down on the ground. "Anyway, last time it took a day or so to build up, so, with a little chance, I should be able to give you a warning in time," she added, closing her eyes.

Bruce mentally swore. The last days had obviously taken their toll on her, and, once more, he wondered if he were not mistaken. If he could not trust someone who had saved his life, and gotten injured in the process, then he had to lower his already very low rating of Humanity.

Telling himself that it served nothing to beat around the bush, and that it would be safer for Kate if he did not let Talia the opportunity to take things into her own hands, Bruce dragged a chair in front of her and sat down back to front on it. "The night of the gunfight above the restaurant downtown Lhasa, you remember?"

Kate half opened her eyes. "Yeah, why?"

"You never told me why you had infiltrated the Triad in the first place."

"That was my job."

"To kill the Triad leader and disguise the crime under a settle of score?" he asked bluntly, feeling his heart beating faster.

Kate's eyes sprang open. "Why do you bring this subject up now? It has no link with our present situation," she said, straightening with a wince of pain.

"Let me doubt that Interpol would pay its cops to execute Triad's leaders."

"That's none of your business," Kate replied sharply, her eyes sending a clear warning not to press the matter as she stood up.

Reacting to her movement, Talia moved forward.

"Who are you working for?" she growled, placing herself between Kate and the elevator.

"You said it earlier. Although, how you know this bothers me a great deal," Kate muttered, sending him a dark glance as she moved her hand to take her weapon out of her belt strap.

Bruce shuddered, feeling all blood leaving his face.

In a matter of seconds, Talia was crushing Kate's face against the wall, twisting her right arm behind her back into a tight, and with no doubt, very painful arm lock.

"Who are you working for?" Talia repeated.

Increasing the pressure on Kate's articulations, she let go of her hair to take out her dagger that she dug in her throat.

A hiss of pain escaped Kate's lips as she closed her eyes tight. "Go to hell!" she cried, trying to push Talia away.

"Bad answer. Try again," Talia growled, digging the dagger deeper, drawing blood.

"Even if I said the truth, you wouldn't have the means to check anyway... It's a matter of trust, and right now I don't feel the atmosphere very trustworthy!"

"I'll be the only judge," Talia snapped.

"And executioner, too?" Kate shot back, sending Bruce a dark glance. "Until now you never gave us a reason to go after you. Don't make that mistake!"

At the threat, Talia tightened the arm lock. Kate screamed at the pain.

"I wouldn't worry for that point," she said, a smirk on her face. "We'll just put your death onto the League of Shadows's account like you did with your Ambassador at Kathmandu's embassy. How convenient, don't you think?"

"How do you know that the League killed one of our diplomats? We didn't let anything filter in the media."

"You were the Ambassador's personal assistant. The best placed person to kill him without awaking suspicions. You just had to step out of his office in panic, yelling for help."

"Bloody hell! The League of Shadows killed Sir Edwards," Kate cried, now enraged. "We found a blue poppy flower in his strong box in place of every single document."

"The blue poppy is no longer the League's business card!" Talia exclaimed, drawing more blood with the dagger. "But the mercenary who had once worked for us could not have known of the change."

"And how possibly would _you_ know that? Oh bloody hell... You're not RAW. You're working for the League of Shadows, aren't you? Then I suggest you search for a traitor in your own ranks of murderers before accusing legal agencies!" Kate snapped, shooting Bruce an even darker glance for his earlier lie before clenching her teeth to deaden another cry of pain.

_Oh crap... _Bruce mentally swore, suddenly remembering a detail from her personal file.

Her twin sibling had been missing in action in China a year before they had crossed each other's path. And her brother had worked for the MI6, with Jack. Why had he not thought of this possibility sooner?

"Your brother. You avenged your brother."

The furtive but real shadow of sadness changing into pure hatred in her eyes told him that he had hit the mark.

Cursing himself, Bruce snatched the knife out of Talia's hand. "She's not the one you're searching for," he said, aware of the daggers Ducard's daughter sent at him.

A thick and painful silence fell on the bunker. As Talia released Kate's arm, Bruce briefly averted his eyes and moved away to take some deep breaths. Using force to extract intel from thugs was one thing, using it on a friendly partner caught in a fool's game was entirely another. One which left a bitter taste that would not go away any soon.

Bruce took a deep breath, and paced around. Jack had been Kate's brother's colleague. Jack again, miraculously saving them from the killers, popping out of nowhere. But to whom had he really come to the rescue that day in the forest? Maybe not Kate as he had said then. If he were taking orders from Ras' Al Ghul, then he might have been there for him.

"Did Jack give this to you?" he asked, removing the bottle of painkiller from his right pants pocket and throwing it to her.

As Kate caught it, Bruce saw her eyes briefly widening under the effect of surprise.

"The pills have been tempered with the blue poppy toxin," he added, watching her silently putting the bottle in her pocket. Not averting her eyes from him, she crouched down to pick up her gun, aimed it at his head, and slowly moved backward toward the platform.

Bruce raised his hands, palms opened in front of him.

"I won't keep you from leaving, but think of it Kate. If Jack was indeed a mole, then in all probability he's the one who compromised your meeting with Hicks and Crane. With what is going on outside, my guess is that you were too close to discovering an important project," he said very calmly, hoping that it would be enough to defuse the tension.

Eyes fluttering, Kate lowered her hand, shaking under the blow. "If you were right, he would have killed me," she said, raising her gun again.

Bruce sighed, and silently watched Kate disappear to the roof an instant later.

"Do you trust her?" Talia asked, joining him.

"More than she can trust me," he replied, a cold stone in the pit of his stomach.

* * *

_ZBK1 =I am receiving your traffic clear_

_ZEC = Have you received message?_

_ZEV = Request you acknowledge message_


	22. Interlude 2

****AN: I modified the first part of the story to remove the 'one chapter=one day' structure. I also removed some paragraphs here and there that finally brought nothing to the story, and corrected the ones with Gordon to make the story coherent with 'Diving into icy darkness'. From now on, I'll only post chapters that have been beta-readed, so you can expect an update twice a month on this story.

* * *

**Brazil - Baniwan's village **

**June 27, 2000 – 10:15 pm**

* * *

A red full moon rose above the jungle, spreading a wave of whispers about a curse amongst the villagers.

Pamela walked up the forest trail toward the Shaman's hut, looking with worried eyes at the people closing their doors in haste as she passed by them. She could not blame them. Despite daily beats, they had not succeeded in catching the jaguar which was still prowling the village, night and day.

A gust of wind swept the trail, lifting a thick cloud of dust inches above the ground.

Nervous, Pamela slowed down to scan the quivering ferns. For a second, she felt all courage abandoning her, and she considered running back into the safety of her hut.

_For what? To sleep?_ she wondered ironically.

Since she had woken up in sweats seven days ago with the dreadful feeling of the beast's teeth digging in her throat, the only thought to close her eyelids created a painful knot in her entrails. Like Pavlov had trained his dog to drool, the jaguar had trained her to be an insomniac. So, even if there were only a slight chance that the Shaman's ritual could correct her situation, she was more than ever determined to give it a try, no matter how harmful for her brain the psychotropic drugs not FDA approved she would have to drink would be.

Pamela shuddered at the thought that she was reduced to a test subject in an experiment.

She sighed and shook her head. The drugs were used for centuries, maybe even millennium; the risk for her to be sick was maybe moderate to high, but to die? It was very low. On the other hand, the risk to die of a heart attack during her sleep was extreme. Like the one to have an accident during a hike trail because she was completely, utterly exhausted.

Pamela slightly chuckled, feeling her nerves being put to a severe stress.

_Sleep deprivation is after all an efficient mean to torture someone,_ she thought just as she caught sight of five men in minimal ceremonial clothes standing in the middle of the trail, torches in hand.

Behind them, the shadow of the Shaman's hut appeared, an imposing mass from which smoke escaped from a hole in the roof.

One of the men stepped out of the group. Despite the yellow painted skin, Pamela recognized their guide, and his presence slightly reassured her.

"Follow me," he said with a coldness in his voice that made her shiver.

From the corner of her eye, Pamela tried to decipher his facial expression, but the man seemed impassive.

The other men stepped out of their path, revealing a large fireplace in which the guide threw his torch. Five-foot height flames suddenly sprang in a whoosh, startling her.

"Come in," the guide said, spreading with his arm the red blanket that covered the hut's entrance.

Feeling mesmerized by the raging fire, Pamela hesitated a brief second. She closed her eyes and shook her head to regain control on her mind. As she turned her head toward the door, she crossed the man's eyes. They were fluttering with fear.

"It is unwise to keep the Shaman waiting, Pamela Lilian Isley," the guide pressed as the other men sat down around the fire and started to sing, all hitting a drum in a slow rhythm.

Taking a deep breath, Pamela stepped in.

A strong, warm smell of incense of eucalyptus leaves invaded her nostrils, forcing each bronchiole in her lungs to dilate.

Feeling suddenly lightheaded, Pamela raised a hand on the doorframe to keep her balance, and took a deep breath despite the realization that she would only inhale more of the incense.

"Don't be afraid, Pamela Lilian Isley," the Shaman said with a soft voice that contrasted with the emotions she had felt from the villagers on her way. "Come and join me in the circle."

Pamela raised shy eyes and looked at the hut decor.

But it was rather Spartan. Save for a small, crackling fire, which dancing flames cast shadows on the Shaman's red and yellow painted face, and for colorful blankets covering the walls, there were no furniture.

Fear in the stomach, Pamela stepped in the sun-shaped drawing on the ground and sat down in front of the fire. The Shaman started to chant, holding both hands above a wooden bowl filled with a dark, metallic liquid.

Pamela felt her stomach clenching at the thought that she would probably have to drink it. At least, it was not in a skull cup.

"The Jaguar is the most powerful spirits of the Sky God, and as such, He inspires fear and respect," the Shaman said as he rose to his feet and slowly approached her, the bowl in hand, "But he is a fair spirit, only prowling the forest at night in search of the people who have twisted the teachings of the Sky God, those who have dark hearts."

"And I should not be afraid that I see Him trying to bite my head off each time I close my eyes?" Pamela asked, a tremor in her voice as the Shaman dipped his yellow painted fingers into the liquid and started to draw things on her face. She shuddered at the sight of the man removing red fingers from the bowl. Was it blood he was putting on her face?

"The Jaguar has not visited us for many generations, and your ancestral roots do not lie in the Amazonian forest. Your family spirits do not feed its ground. My guess is He used drastic means to attract our attention, going as far as daylight apparitions, so we would perform the ritual."

"What will happen to me?" she asked while the Shaman was now painting her arms and hands.

"As I said, the Jaguar has not come to us for a long time. I am the first Jaguar's Priest in many generations. The grand-father of my great-grand-father was the last one to be granted such a great honor."

"You mean this ritual has not been performed in a hundred of years?" Pamela gasped, throwing an alarmed glance at the liquid in the bowl. Now that most of it had been used on her skin, she could see the point of a small knife in it before the Shaman quickly put the bowl aside.

"Don't be afraid. The _Ayahuasca_ brew is used since the dawn of time and not only for the Jaguar's Ceremony. Is it not the reason of your presence amongst us? To discover the hidden power of Nature?" he said, moving behind her.

A cry of pain escaped Pamela's lips as she felt a sharp pain on her left shoulder.

"In our case, the only difference is that the _Ayahuasca_ must be blood diluted and blood administered," the Shaman said, moving back in front of her.

A dizzy spell suddenly hit Pamela as all her surroundings started to become blurry around her. While a heavy, dark cloak was falling on her mind, she could hear the Shaman's distorted voice professing a warning.

"The Jaguar is a shape-shifter. He can choose to come to you under another appearance than His true One in order to test your integrity."

"What... will happ...en if I fail?..." she asked, short-breathed as she tried hard to cling on to consciousness.

"He will kill you."

The death sentence echoing in her mind, Pamela took a last conscious breath, and fell into a dark, silent abyss.


	23. Ch 20

AN: I modified the first part of the story to remove the 'one chapter=one day' structure. I also removed some paragraphs here and there that finally brought nothing to the story, and corrected the ones with Gordon to make the story coherent with 'Diving into icy darkness'. From now on, I'll only post chapters that have been beta-readed, so you can expect an update twice a month on this story. (That means I removed all the chapters that haven't been beta reviewed, sorry for the inconvenience.)

* * *

**Gotham City – Batman's bunker**

**July 28, 2009 – 6:57 am**

* * *

"Why is she not leaving?" Talia asked, staring at the screen set on an outside view of the pier.

As he pushed his bike toward the elevator, Bruce cast a furtive glance at it.

"Just needs some time to take the blow, I guess," he replied, watching Kate's lonely silhouette climbing on the four foot high concrete guardrail on the edge of the pier and sitting down, legs dangling above the dark, polluted waters.

At least the fact that she was not running away as if the Devil were after her confirmed that he had been right: Jack was the mole Talia had been pursuing.

"She's calling someone."

Bruce quickly put the kickstand down, and came back toward the computers in order to activate the telecommunications hacking system. On screen, a map of the eastern coast appeared with a red spot giving Kate's position in Gotham. Shortly after, a second spot blinked above Washington.

"Spying spies?" Talia smirked, staring at him with wide eyes when the cell phone number Kate had just dialed finally locked position in the CIA headquarters in Langley. "Not afraid that they'll track you back?"

"They won't even know I'm listening," he replied, thinking nonetheless that this was indeed a bit more dangerous than hacking the mob's communications. He was adjusting the speaker volume when a male voice said,

"_You've just reached my voicemail. Please leave a message, and I won't call you back."_

"_You know you can just ignore the call, Felix?"_

"_Where would be the fun in that?"_

"_Still angry at me, I see."_

"_Why should I? I'm happy to see that you made it out alive though."_

"_Oh, I'm sure you managed to find that out all by yourself."_

"_Sure I did, but a phone call or an email would have been nice. I could have offered my congratulations for your promotion."_

"_Well... how you know my status was upgraded I don't want to know right now, but if that could rearrange things, I should be able to invite you to dinner sometime in the next few days."_

"_Now, you must have quite an embarrassing service to ask, first not to use your own resources and second to offer a date in return. Please, tell me you aren't asking me to spy on your young Prince Harry?"_

Bruce exchanged a perplexed glance with Talia, reading on her face that she too was feeling a bit perplexed, almost embarrassed to hear what sounded like an old couple arguing.

"_As you said, I've been promoted, not punished. I just need a cell phone report to help me confirm a case of dirty laundry."_

"_On our ground? And here I thought all washers were Chinese nowadays."_

"_Will you help me, Felix?"_

"_Alright. Gimme your number."_

"_342-3356. The line was definitely cut three days ago, but if you could get me a detailed location mapping for the last three months, that would be very appreciated."_

_"Are you telling me you've been here that long? Jeez, our borders are strainers."_

"_Not only your borders, Felix..."_

"_Don't dig the knife in the wound, please, Kate... You're in Gotham? Is the reason of your presence linked to the hostage taking there?"_

"_The hell if I know... since I set foot here everything's going down the crapper..."_

"_Be careful, Kate, this city's rotten to the core. I wouldn't even trust my own mother there. Must be something in the air."_

"_Thanks for the advice. I'll keep it in mind."_

"_Hm... strange...You said the line was dead, but it's not what my baby's telling me."_

"_Say again?"_

"_Your cell phone's giving a position. White rail line, between Townsend and Sheal Bridge. Either your guy's phone's been stolen or he's playing Jesus for your eyes only." _

"_Kate? Still there?"_

"_Yes, I am."_

"_I just sent a data burst to your phone so you can track his past moves, but try not to make any fuss. I'd hate to see you escorted back to the airport before our date."_

"_I'll do my-"_

As the communication suddenly stopped, Bruce frowned, and cut the link on his side.

"Why did he cut? Did they notice you were listening or what?" Taia asked, worried.

"Dunno," Bruce replied, a bit annoyed, though the third spot blinking somewhere in the middle of Gotham's river annoyed him further.

The rail line tunnel was shut down for maintenance every weekend until September. This was not good at all.

Quickly, Bruce took out his cell phone, and typed an SMS to Gordon to ask him to send patrols. From the corner of his eye he noticed_ No network_ blinking on the screen.

Bruce frowned, worried.

_What the hell is going on?_ he wondered while on screen Kate was walking back to her van at a brisk pace.

"Can I let you track back all the locations our traitor went the last few days?" he asked Talia as he quickly opened the hijacked file in another screen and pushed the chair away from the desk to stand up.

"With pleasure," she replied, taking his place behind the computer. "What are you going to do?"

"Try to gain back Kate's cooperation," Bruce said, putting on his helmet. "And go ask Jack some questions in the same breath."

As the platform began to rise toward the ceiling, Bruce wondered if the situation in the Convention Center could be nothing more than a diversion, created to occupy the summer, limited police workforce while a bigger operation was on-going in another part of the city.

oOo

In the Sunday quiet early hours, Bruce drove fast on an almost deserted Aparo Expressway, keeping Kate's van in visual range a hundred yards ahead. In the distance, he could see midtown's silent skyscrapers piercing through the trees that hid the townhouses of the wealthy middle class, most of which he guessed were empty; their occupants being away for the vacations.

Bruce felt a knot tightening his guts. Midtown was indeed the less populated area of Gotham in this time of year.

The sound of Kate's van screeching tires suddenly attracted his attention back to the road. Eyes wide with fear, he saw a massive creeper bursting underneath the van, lifting it on its side and sending it in a series of somersaults.

The ground started to vibrate dangerously. The asphalt cracked all around him.

Reacting instinctively, Bruce increased his speed and drove over a larger fracture just before creepers burst through it. Heart beating wildly in his chest, he cast a look in his mirror and saw the Aparo Expressway collapsing while in front of him the four lanes were disappearing below a thick tangle of lianas, trunks, and ferns, forcing him to break down in emergency.

Aware that he was still a hundred feet above the water, Bruce jumped off his bike and ran toward Kate's van that emitted worrying metallic shrieks.

Lying on its side, it was surrounded by trunks formed by intertwined creepers getting thicker by the second. Kate's vehicle was going to be compressed as if it were in a press in a scrap yard.

Shuddering at the sight of a ten inch thick creeper piercing through the windshield, Bruce climbed on the van and, jaw clenched in anticipation of a macabre scene, he opened the passenger door.

"Kate! Gimme your hand!" he shouted, reassured to find the young woman trying to squeeze and crawl between the van's ceiling and the thick creeper.

As the van was lifted in the air, Bruce seized her hand, pulled her out of the cabin, and together they jumped on the ground ten feet down.

Upon impact, Kate fell to her knees and rolled on her side with a moan of pain.

Bruce grabbed her by the collar and, supporting her, he ran as fast as possible toward the end of the bridge, ignoring the searing pain from his stab wound.

When they reached the relative safety of midtown's island solid ground, they both crumbled to the ground, breathless and covered with sweat.

"I can't... believe... that you were... following me, _again_!" Kate snapped, pushing on her hands to stand up.

"Would it kill ya to say thanks for once?" Bruce shot back.

Irritated, he cast a glance all around him. And what he saw left him without voice, cutting his ire short.

What used to be an ocean view street with neat, cozy townhouses looked like ruins in a jungle.

How the hell could such a transformation occur in so short a time?

"After what just happened? You must be kidding me!"

Bruce closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

"Dammit, Kate! You perfectly know that your situation was more than ambiguous," he said, taking out his cell phone to join Talia. But he was no more successful than in the bunker fifteen minutes earlier.

The cellular network was jammed.

Who could do that? That was a bit too complicated for ecoterrorists, although terra-forming Gotham into a primeval forest could be something they would be happy to see.

"What _I_ know is that you have links with one of the most _dangerous_ terrorist organizations in the world!"

"Can you say it louder? I don't think they heard you in Metropolis!" Bruce snapped, feeling all his hair standing on end as he shot her a dark glance that collided with the daggers in hers.

Bruce exhaled his tension slowly. She looked like hell.

The blood that was running down her neck from a gash on her right temple had began to coagulate, but no doubt it had to be burning, causing a hell of a headache. And after the revelation that not only Jack was a mole but also that he was still alive, she had all rights to feel on edge.

He could only guess what was going on in her mind right now: the betrayal, the dark ire he would feel against himself in her position, to have been so easily manipulated.

"Look, as much as I'd like to explain everything to you, this is not the place. Now either you come with me, or I let you find your way through midtown alone," he said curtly before taking the direction of the Wayne Tower.

Silent, they got into a wild, alien vegetation.

Climbing creepers covered the buildings; the street lamps, bus signpost, and advertising panels were swallowed under a tangle of branches and high ferns. The parked vehicles were trapped in cocoons. At each crossroads, hairy lianas fell from the lights like spider webs floating in a wind that carried away mournful laments of an industrial city being transformed into a hot, humid, vegetal no man's land.

An hour later, his shirt pressed against his skin by the sweat, Bruce briefly stopped and sighed in frustration. Behind the creepers on his right, he recognized the stone sculpted facade of Saint-Paul Chapel.

In normal time, it was a two hour's good paced walk between the Aparo Expressway and the Tower. Today, they would be lucky to make it before the end of the afternoon.

A piece of light blue panel right in front of him attracted his gaze.

Feeling a surge of hope seizing him, Bruce jumped over a prominent root and removed the creepers wrapped around the public phone.

With a slight wince, he extended his arm inside the gutted cocoon and grabbed the handset, hoping that either Alfred or Talia would have some valuable intel that could explain this mess.

"The land line is down," he said, muttering a curse.

"What the bloody hell are you saying?" Kate whispered, raising wide perplexed eyes toward him.

"All communications are down," he repeated, sitting down on the ground and leaning his back against the phone's pole, feeling a powerlessness tightening his guts.

"This is a paramilitary operation," Kate sighed, casting an aghast look around her. "Maybe the triad your _RAW_ _friend_ was talking about."

Bruce winced, and shook his head. "I don't think so. Triads are after money and power, two things that don't grow in jungles."

"Ecologists don't know how to take down land lines separated electrical network."

"Unless they're advised by an ex-military," Bruce replied flatly. "Face it Kate! Jack was a mole working for a criminal organization."

"Damn it!" Kate snapped before sighing and sitting down on the ground with another curse. She stared angrily at the ground for a few seconds, before sighing heavily.

"We knew we had a mole at the Embassy," she said with a calm tone, "Though I never suspected Jack to be the one I was searching for. I guess his best cover was the fact that I trusted him."

Bruce frowned. "You said _I_ was searching for?"

Kate turned cold eyes toward him. Bruce shuddered. For an instant, he had absolutely no idea of what was going on in her mind.

"To protect the Ambassador was only a cover," she said after a moment, focusing her eyes on something in front of her.

Bruce released his breath, and sighed, too exhausted and bitter to feel surprised. A cover inside a cover like a Russian nesting doll.

Their world was really crap.

A sudden tickling going up his spinal column made him crane his head and stand up quickly. It felt like a large bug had found its way below his shirt. Annoyed, Bruce tried with a hand to grab the responsible.

"Stop wiggling," Kate said, catching his arm to force him to stay still. "Like a lot of people, they don't bite unless you spook them, and what you're doing will do just that," she added, removing the bug that had reached his neck.

At the sight of a four-inch wide tarantula, Bruce closed his eyes and took a deep breath to calm down his nerves.

"Heya, little monster, go find a smaller bug to eat," Kate said, putting the beast on the ground.

Certain that he had seen in Kate's eyes a glimpse of tenderness, Bruce winced, "Okay that's disturbing enough. I know some well-trained warriors that would have just freaked out like a girl."

"I'll try not get offended by the _girl_ allusion, and, well... your little dance was quite fun to see," she replied with a smirk before sitting back down on the ground.

The spider moved back toward her leg, and Kate let it climbed on her.

"Do you really have to keep it in your lap like a cat?" Bruce added with a wince when he saw her taking the spider back in her hands like she had done six years ago in the forest in Tibet with a snake that had fallen from a branch just in front of his feet.

"After Morse communications, why don't you add wildlife desensitization to your training?"

"I live in a city. The only desensitization I need is for guns and knives, not venomous hooks."

"Well... looks like you need it now," Kate said, casting a glance overhead. "I have one hell of a good method if you want, an SAS one, though it had been tested on kids," she added, slowly standing up.

"Don't even think about it!" he said, eyes throwing daggers at her.

Kate chuckled and sat back down with the spider now on her shoulder.

"Kids? I knew you weren't one to play with dolls," he said with a disgusted wince.

"I played with dolls like any other girl. Okay, maybe not very often. Anyway, the fact is my twin brother didn't," she chuckled before sighing. Her gaze on the spider, she smiled to herself as if a memory had emerged.

"We were about eight year old when William developed a particular interest for snakes and all kind of creatures that usually scare off most of the kids. Assuming that I shared his passion, our father came back home one day after a month out somewhere with a scarlet king snake for Will, a tarantula for me, and books about everything you ever wanted – _or not_ – to know about them."

"Knowing you, you probably asked for a dragon in exchange..."

Kate briefly raised her eyes toward him and chuckled.

"Nope. But I did freak out completely, like a _girl_, refusing flat to stay in the house as long as _they_ would be in."

Bruce winced. "I guess the blackmail didn't work to your advantage?"

"Not really, no. Our father caught me by the collar before I could reach the door, set the beasts free in our bedroom, and locked me in, saying I would not get out until I had caught them and put them back into their vivariums. I just had to read the books."

"Oh! Great. So you learned to catch spiders that day?" Bruce said, imagining the scene in his mind with dread.

This was not education but full military training. Although it did not seem to have traumatized her; after all, both Kate and her brother had walked in their father's path, so the man must have been quite some personality.

"Bloody hell... the only thing I learned that day was that I was too heavy for the top branches of the tree in our garden."

Bruce's eyes widened. "You escaped through the window?"

"Not my most brilliant idea, nor my best moment either. I fell down three stories, broke my right leg and wrist. My father found that being immobilized for the rest of the summer was a good punishment for freaking out for no reason, so to keep me occupied, he placed the vivariums on the dresser next to my bed and assigned me to _feed-the-beasts_ duty."

Bruce closed his eyes, sending a silent prayer to his father for having chosen to be a physician and not a military man. With Kate's father, he would have ended up camping in the caves for a month. But then... maybe he would not have freaked out that evening in the opera...

Bruce exhaled slowly. He had gone down this path enough times.

"And now you're wandering strange forests without panicking every two feet. All in all, you have to admit that it was a more useful gift than a Barbie doll," he said with a sad smile.

"Dunno... If he had offered me more dolls when I was little, then maybe I'd have a normal job and would not be sitting in a weird jungle talking with a _repentant_ terrorist."

Bruce could not help but chuckle. Yeah... A normal job and a normal life. It sounded like the perfect dream.

Though for Gotham's citizens today, normal was a word that did not have much sense anymore. Someone had to do the less _normal_ job of trying to get things back into _normal_ parameters.

"What is it about us and creepy forests anyway?" Kate asked, casting a worried glance at the thick vegetation.

"Karma?" he replied as a roar sounded in the distance.

Feeling his smile fading, Bruce slowly stood up, and meticulously scanned the entanglement of ferns and creepers surrounding them.

"What the hell was that?" Kate whispered, eyes wide open as a second roar sounded almost right away, like an answer to the first. "Don't tell me you have a zoo in this bloody city?" she asked him with pleading eyes.

Bruce winced. Not only did they have one, but he was aware that it was too far away to hear the animals.

"Let's go, now. I'd prefer we reached my office before the night falls over this jungle," he said, extending his hand to help her stand up as the thought of wild carnivorous beasts wandering freely through the city took a frightening shape.


	24. Ch 21

**Gotham City – Midtown Island**

**July 28, 2009 – 6:46 pm**

* * *

Bathed in sweat after a day of hiking in a hot-humid jungle, Bruce glanced above his shoulder to make sure that Kate was not far behind.

As he saw her clenched jaw and her focused eyes on a ground submerged by muddy waters, he wondered if she were on autopilot or just busy planning coldly what she would do if she found herself face-to-face with Jack, keeping her mind occupied to bare the physical pain of the moment.

_Probably both_, he sighed, feeling his stomach gurgling. Damn... He had forgotten what it was to be starving.

Bruce raised his eyes and scanned the cocoons that encased the buildings around them. They were so thick that he had no idea exactly where he was anymore. Was it possible that he had missed the Tower and gotten them lost?

Again, he shook the idea away. With the set of four very large emitting satellite dishes on its roof, the Tower was higher than the surrounding buildings and couldn't be missed, even in this landscape. And it was also their last chance to communicate with the outside world, if there were still a world outside.

Bruce suddenly frowned, feeling his guts twisting in a painful knot. Was Lucius trapped in the Tower? The security at the- A searing pain suddenly pierced his skull through and through.

Shutting his eyes tightly, Bruce set a hand on the closest trunk.

"Hey!"

Bruce barely heard Kate's voice, feeling the jungle suddenly swirling before his eyes that saw stars.

"Bruce? Hey!"

Out of breath, a dark veil was falling on his vision while cold sweat pearled on his forehead and spine.

Bruce crouched down on the ground before his legs would fail him and focused on taking slow, deep breath. What the hell was that?

After a few moments his dizziness faded, and Kate's worried face appeared in front of him.

"Do you know where the closest drugstore is? A wound can easily infect itself under such climates, and you're burning up."

"In the tower's basement," he sighed, massaging his eyes to get rid of the last stars. Blood was pounding in his temples, beating a painful rhythm that his headache followed.

Slightly nauseous, Bruce glanced at a swarm of spores rising from the lianas wrapped around the city's street light next to him.

The vegetation was progressively losing its vivid colors, the various tones of green and brown were turning uniformly grey while the outlines of the leaves became undetectable.

_Dusk._.. Bruce shuddered, observing with a hint of worry the night falling on the jungle.

If the roars had stopped to echo sometime in the middle of the afternoon, he expected to hear them again soon.

This was just another reason to keep up the pace.

With a wince, Bruce stood up. "Let's go," he said, resuming their path.

A few blocks further, the jungle slowly began to harbor the characteristics of sea mangroves.

But without the help of a machete, the mass of small trunks and branches raised with long, slender leaves made their path even more difficult.

Arms and legs grazed, Bruce was considering moving back when a clearer spot appeared less than ten yards away on his left.

A dry crack sounded, and Kate suddenly cried.

Bruce turned quickly and saw her extricating her left leg from a hole between two roots.

"You alright?" he asked when he caught a shadow of pain in her eyes.

Jaws clenched, Kate nodded, and sat down to take a look at her leg.

Her cargo pant was torn from the ankle to the knee, and bright red blood was pearling from a long scratch on her leg.

"Damn it," she swore as she was standing up. "Let's go. The sooner we reach your place, the better for my nerves."

Bruce shook his head gravely. "No, we'll find a shelter for the night in the first accessible building and resume our way tomorrow morning," he said, moving toward the clear spot he had perceived before the incident. They had reached their limit for the day and had to stop before injuring themselves more than they were already.

A few minutes later, he spread some leaves away from his face and let out a gasp at the scene that stretched in front of his wide eyes.

In the middle of a dead calm lake colored red by a cloudless sunset, stood the desolated shadow of Wayne Central Station cupola; its glass surfacing was burst, leaving only the dark metallic skeleton apparent.

Bruce's glance fell on the shadows of the four mermaids in bronze holding at arm's length a silver W.

For a brief moment, he heard the cries of joy of the children usually playing under the water-jets coming out of their tails. But the echo faded quickly, replaced by a dreadful void.

Half submerged, covered with thin, hairy lianas, the sirens looked like figureheads on the prow of a stranded ship.

"Does the White Train Line go by this station?" Kate asked in a whisper as he dipped his fingers in the waters.

The salt taste burnt his dried papilla, and he spit before replying, "Unfortunately."

This sealed the fate of the tunnel between Townsend's and Sheal's Bridge's stations.

Gotham's River provided now the vegetation and the animals with a source of water, even if it were a brackish one. A whole new ecosystem was put into place.

"What the hell are you doing?" Kate grumbled as he jumped in the three-foot-deep waters. "We shouldn't stay here!"

"There's a Starbucks Coffee inside," he said, though it was not exactly for this reason he was willing to take the risk to venture in a lake at dusk.

They had not crossed a single living soul since they had set foot in Midland Island this morning. He had told himself that in all probability everybody had shut themselves away, not daring to move out of their flats or houses, but here it was different. Wayne's Central was operating around the clock, and whatever the hour of the flooding, there must have been people inside.

As he moved slowly toward the station, Bruce heard Kate arming her gun with a curse before joining him in the dark waters.


	25. Ch 22

_AN: I'm aware some of you have already read the *un-betaed* version of this chapter. I'm truly sorry for this inconvenient, but I do prefer to wait for my beta to correct my texts from now on. A few more chapters will fall into this category before I really put a new one on-line. **  
**_

* * *

**Gotham City – The cave beneath Wayne Manor**

**July 28, 2009 – 8:04 pm**

* * *

Alfred stared at the Tumbler's rear lights disappearing through the waterfall, wondering if he had not just done the two biggest mistakes since Bruce had reappeared in his life and taken on the Batman's armor.

Had it not been for GCN chopper's live images of Gotham, he would have had the greatest difficulty believing the young RAW agent who turned up at the manor's front entrance about two hours ago, no matter how genuine the sheer terror in her eyes was.

But as Alfred had not been able to join either Bruce or Hawkins all day long, there were indeed terrible probabilities that Talia Makhanji was telling the truth, and that both were indeed trapped in the _alien_ vegetal scab that swallowed the city.

A lump in his throat, Alfred walked back toward the control room, cursing against his old age that condemned him in a wait-and-see position.

He had trusted the young woman and sent her to Bruce's and Hawkins's rescue with the Tumbler, Batman's armor in a wide bag on the passenger seat.

This was perhaps his first mistake. He could have been manipulated to deliver the only vehicle capable of fighting its way through the jungle and using the river as roads to the enemy.

As he approached the main console and the wall of screens casting a bluish halo of light in the vast room, Alfred shuddered at the sight of Hawkins's sub-dermal transmitter blinking a red dot above Wayne's Central.

And here was perhaps his second mistake.

In order to localize Bruce – like his, his young master's cell phone was not working anymore and could not be tracked - he had called his former employer. SIS had their own way to track their agents around the world.

Alfred shuddered, the Head of the MI6's last words still echoing clearly in his mind.

She did not care for his current employer' activities; she was no fool either.

The weight of this _betrayal_ joined the weight of the last week's events and caused Alfred to fall in his chair a bit heavily. At least Bruce's secret identity had fallen into ears that knew to be deafer than Death.

What annoyed him as much as it reassured him was the new fact that Hawkins was reporting directly to the head of SIS. The file Bruce had hacked on the British operative was the _official_ one, not the real one. This one was hidden in the MI6's chief's strong box.

Alfred exhaled slowly to ease his tension, wondering if Bruce had the slightest idea of how unstable Hawkins's support could become. Even under the circumstances, the operative would not forget her primary mission and could decide to work it all alone if the Batman interfered with her original goal.

It was maybe already the case, he feared as he glanced at the main screen displaying a map of Gotham.

The red dot corresponding to Hawkins's sub-dermal transmitter had not moved from Wayne's Central.

Perhaps they had decided to call a break after a day of hiking into this insane jungle and established in the station for the night, or perhaps one of them was hurt and could not walk anymore. Another possibility was that Hawkins was dead, and Bruce had left her body there.

In this latter case, the odds the young RAW agent would find him were slim; his young master was then truly alone.

A blip sounded, and the screen on his left lit up.

_Finally... _Alfred sighed, rolling his chair toward it with satisfaction as he stared at another map of the city with multiple colored lines on it. This was better.

The RAW agent had also brought him a file with data to analyze, saying that inside the five spreadsheets full of GPS coordinates versus time and date there was the terrorists's base localization somewhere.

Analyzing the hundreds of thousands of GPS coordinates corresponding to Jack Andrews's moves during a three-month's period with a fifteen minutes gap between two points, was a challenge.

Damn... he had trust the man to protect Bruce while he was based in the province of Sichuan in South Western China seven years ago, and now he had just learnt that he had been a mole working for the League of Shadows back then. Alfred shuddered again, feeling guilt swallowing him. The secret society had put its hands on Bruce thanks to Andrews and thanks to him.

Alfred sank in his chair, devastated by this new blow, and it took all his will to force his raging mind to focus on the present.

He was modifying the parameters to create a week basis chart on the last month data when another blip sounded.

"What the hell..." he muttered, noticing that it was an intrusion alert.

Six armed silhouettes were walking in the manor's hall.


	26. Ch 23

**Gotham City – Midtown Island**

**July 28, 2009 – 8:23 pm**

In Wayne's Central station, Bruce stood silent, his fists clenched, and dark ire rising at the sight of four bodies floating.

Less than ten feet on his right, a corpse was stuck on the back of a seat in the bus's waiting room, arms spread in a cross. He did not have to check the young man's pulse to know that no one could help him anymore; the vacant, glassy eyes testified of his fate.

Not giving hope to find survivors, Bruce averted his eyes from the body and scanned the vast hall. On his left, the Starbucks Coffee was plunged in half darkness.

"Hello? Is there anybody out there?" he cried out as he headed toward the submerged tables. Maybe someone had found shelter in the stockroom or in the kitchen and was waiting for rescue there, shell-shocked.

He was climbing over the counter when the metallic click of Kate's gun loading echoed.

"Bloody hell! Bruce?" she barked, moving quickly backwards toward him, aiming something in the escalator area.

Bruce narrowed his eyes, trying to see what had made her react so promptly. He had heard no roar but this did not guarantee that no beast was stalking them.

"There was a body there, I'm sure," she said, climbing on a table while maintaining her aim straight at the waters, below the suspended electronic board that used to announce the train schedules.

"Crap..." he muttered, as he caught sight of small waves spreading in circles.

"Did your training cover crocodile hunting?" he asked with a wince.

If his memory was correct, Gotham's zoo accommodated a couple of saltwater crocodiles. The largest living reptile on earth was a charming creature fond of goanna and sharks for breakfast or supper. The nine millimeter in her hand would do little damage.

Kate briefly averted her eyes from the waters and cast him a nervous glance. "You must be kidding me... The most dangerous animals in Falklands are sheeps!" he said, joining him on the counter.

Bruce cursed. They were trapped, at least until tomorrow morning when the beast would be more lethargic, and the waters clearer.

"Try not to get eaten until I come back," he said, before sliding through the opening leading to the kitchen in hope to find a knife or any kind of weapon.

"Did you really have to talk about eating?"

Bruce smirked at her moan and jumped down in the kitchen.

Jaws clenched, he pushed away the body of an employee, floating face down in the middle of small, square, wrapping papers, and explored the small and cluttered place. To his relief, he found three knives hanging on a magnetic bar next to an industrial oven on the left wall.

He had grabbed a four-inch-long blade when several shots reverberated, quickly followed by the sound of splashing waters. A cry of pain sounded.

Pulse running amok, Bruce moved back toward the front and jumped over the counter separating the employee from the customer areas. But once there, he froze, eyes wide opened by a terror that brought him dangerously close to freaking out.

Coming out of a whitish, boiling foam, a huge and glistening tentacle whipped the air and the waters.

"Hold on!" he cried, catching sight of Kate, clinging with all her strength on the edge of a table, struggling not to let herself be dragged away.

He seized her arm just as she let go.

Teeth clenched, Bruce threw his free hand like a harpoon to find anything to grasp. His fingers found the edge of a wooden banquette, and a tug suddenly stretched his limbs.

Despite the searing pain in his shoulder he clung on the banquette, and, with a growl, he tried to pull Kate away from whatever this thing was.

As her head broke the surface, their eyes met. They expressed sheer terror. This made no sense. What the hell was happening to them? To the city?

Kate cried out in pain. Bruce shuddered. He was foolishly pulling on the feet of a hanged person hoping that the noose would break while it would only dislocate the body from the head. He had only one way out of this, and it was to cut the rope.

Heart beating to brake free in his chest, he took a deep breath, and released his grasp on the banquette.

In the half shadows bathing the waters, a swarm of long, undulating tentacles attached like a corolla to a strangely shaped appendix made him realize the extent of his mistake.

Even if he cut one, the beast had plenty of spares to catch them again; getting close to the monster to kill it, assuming a knife could do it, without being captured and drowned was highly unlikely.

_Stop dithering!_ Bruce berated himself, feeling the pressure in his ears increasing as the beast was diving fast toward the entrails of the station. Time was of the essence now.

Determined to try everything to save Kate, he seized her by the waistband, and began to crawl over her body toward the tentacle that was holding her.

Without hesitation, he dug his knife in the gelatinous flesh wrapped all around her leg.

A slippery, viscous substance oozed from the gash.

Satisfied, Bruce was about to repeat the maneuver when the tentacle suddenly contracted, and, in a whiplash, sent them crashing in the ceiling.

A burning pain seared through Bruce's back as he hit one of the statues of birds suspended above the escalators, grazing his skin to the blood.

Eyes shut and jaw clenched, Bruce fought hard not to breath, while the feeling of floating, weightlessness, started to numb his senses.

A tentacle brushed against his neck.

Out of instinct, Bruce tried to stab it but when his knife only cut water, he nervously looked all around him, ready to fight. Against all odds, he saw the shadow of the beast undulating away in a whitish, almost spectral halo of light.

But he did not have time to wonder why the beast had released them. Floating adrift a few feet from him, Kate's body started to convulse.

Quickly, he swam toward her, grabbed her by the collar, and moved up as fast as possible while a loud roar made the waters ripple around them. Shortly after, the shadows bathing the escalators were completely chased away.

Bruce felt a tap under his feet. Blinded, and on the edge of freaking out, he kicked what he imagined being another creepy monster with all his strength, certain that he was going to lose a foot.


	27. Ch 24

**Gotham City – Downtown Island**

**Untouched zone – 45th District Police Station**

**July 29, 2009 – 8:25 am**

"Commissioner? Sorry to wake you up, sir."

The stress in Montoya's voice more than her hand shaking his shoulder woke Jim Gordon up.

"What? Are we evacuating the building, Lieutenant?" he asked, his voice hoarse with sleep as he raised his arm to glance at his watch. _Eight thirty..._

After being up and about for about forty hours straight, he wondered if the three hours of rest he just managed to snatch had not exhausted him further. If it was possible, he felt more drained now.

"Not yet, sir. According to the last report, the jungle is still ten blocks away north and twelve south," Montoya replied, handing him a cup of coffee.

Gordon rolled on his side, sat up with difficulty on the comfy couch in the captain's vacant office, and took the mug with a nod of gratitude.

In his field of vision laid the pictures of the captain's four kids. Unlike him, the lucky man and his family were enjoying a vacation somewhere near San Francisco, as far away as possible from the green muck up Gotham had gotten bogged into.

"How's the evacuation going on?" he asked, walking to the window and spreading the blinds away to cast a look at the street crowded with people trying to run away before the jungle would reach them. Then... a myriad of red flowers would bloom and spit their venom on anyone close. He still could hear the cries of pain and terror of the people trapped, see them rushing into cover in the closest building. How was he going to rescue them? This was a nightmare. It had to be.

"Too slowly, sir. According to the last estimates, barely a fourth of the population of Downtown Island has reached the mainland. All main streets toward the bridges are blocked; people have started to abandon their cars and are walking their way out." Montoya shook her head, and Gordon could tell that she was drained. "There's a guy for you in the corridor. His ID says he's CIA, though he strangely looks like..." she paused, and looked down.

"Like what, Lieutenant?" Gordon asked, intrigued by the sudden amused glance on his Lieutenant's face.

Montoya sighed deeply. "Dunno, sir, maybe I'm just tired."

"Have you taken some rest as ordered, Lieutenant?"

"With Bullock pestering orders every minute next to my ears? Hardly, sir," the woman replied, chuckling sadly.

"Commissioner Gordon I presume?" suddenly asked someone with a firm voice.

Montoya gave a discreet nod toward the man. "CIA guy," she whispered while Gordon craned his head toward the door and saw a man of good built, in his late thirties with short black hair, although a bit long on the top of the head to be a regular cut, a two-days beard, a black polo shirt, green cotton cargo pants, and standard military boots.

Gordon raised his eyebrows. If he did not already know who hid behind the Dark Knight's cowl, no doubt the CIA agent would be eligible. Unlike Montoya, for him the man only smacked off black ops.

"What can I do for you, Mister?" Gordon asked, moving to sit down at the Captain's desk.

"Teiler, Felix Teiler," the man replied, looking relaxed with his hands in his pants pockets. "I'm here to take control of the situation."

Montoya shot Gordon a perplexed glance. "What?" she asked, searching in his eyes how to react to such a statement.

Gordon sighed. He knew that despite Teiler's relaxed appearance and his detached tone – a tone that he bet the man would equally use to announce tomorrow's forecast or an imminent nuclear attack - there was no room for negotiation.

A deep sense of authority emanated from the CIA agent's eyes.

"You don't like beating around the bush, do you?" Gordon asked, deciding to try his hand nonetheless.

"I only do when I've got time," Teiler replied, taking out a white envelope from the inner pocket of his jacket and sliding it on the desk toward him.

Gordon grasped it, unfolded the letter, and raised an appreciative eyebrow at the sight of the White House heading.

"There must be some people grinding their teeth at Washington," he said, perplexed that the President granted the CIA full powers over this crisis, instead of Homeland Security.

"We had some arguments," Teiler replied calmly just as a young man dressed like a Marine appeared on the doorframe.

The soldier headed straight toward the CIA officer, and whispered something in his ear, covering his mouth with his hand so Gordon would not read his lips.

Gordon sighed. No, cooperation was not on the agenda.

"I'll be there shortly," Teiler replied, exchanging a tense glance with the man. A glance that, for Gordon, told more than the few words he had just pronounced.

Jaws clenched, the young soldier nodded, and took off, closing fast but silently the door behind him.

"Do I have enough clearance to know what convinced the President to allow the CIA to encroach on Brennan's territory?" Gordon asked, hunting for intel as he was certain that an operation was going on or at least in preparation. The young soldier was tense, his moves too sharp.

Teiler cast a look at his watch before raising his piercing blue eyes to him. "No, you don't. I only came to tell you that a chopper's waiting for you on the roof to take you to Sheal's town hall and to warn you that two C130s will fly over Gotham in three hours."

"Orange agent in their cargo?" Gordon asked, feeling his guts tightening in a painful knot.

"Something similar."

"You can't do that! We need more time to evacuate the city," Montoya cried, a flash of panic widening her eyes.

Gordon raised a hand to stop her.

Although he could not say that he was astonished by the news - there were not many means to control weeds. A red dawn would rise above the city in a few hours.

"All the simulations we ran, based on the growth rate of the jungle, show that the whole city will be overtaken by the early morning," Teiler interrupted, still with the same calm tone. "If this _thing_ manages to move on the mainland, it will knock on the White House front door in a matter of days. All actions are considered to stop it before."

A tense silence fell on the office, during which Gordon saw Teiler imperceptibly nodding toward Montoya.

"Lieutenant?" Gordon said, catching in the man's tight jaw that he had more to say, although he would only in private. "Establish a perimeter a block away from all evacuation spots, and pass the order to confine oneself for the next seventy-two hours in the nearest buildings. Have our men join the citizens to maintain calm and order as much as possible," he added, aware of the panic it was going to provoke.

"Yes, sir," she replied, the anger in her eyes telling that she was not fooled.

Teiler glanced above his shoulder when Montoya shut close the door behind her a bit roughly before turning his piercing blue eyes toward him again.

"It is our understanding that you've made yourself quite an unusual friend these last years, Commissioner. I want to contact him."

_Still not beating around the bush..._ Gordon sighed.

"I don't see what you're talking about," he replied, staring without batting an eyelid at the CIA officer.

The man briefly averted his eyes, bit his lip, and exhaled slowly.

"Commissioner Gordon, I bought your city a delay of three hours only on the basis that _his_ knowledge of the city and of what's going on could help us find another way to stop this madness. And if we had the slightest doubt that he was the cop killer and dangerous terrorist you claim he is, be assured that he would have been taken care of by more _competent_ agencies."

Not caring about the underlying insult, Gordon straightened in his seat and crossed his hands in front of him.

_What the hell? The CIA, recruiting the Dark Knight?_


	28. Ch 25

**Gotham City - Midtown Island **

**July 29, 2009 - 9:26 pm**

Warm, oppressive darkness wrapped Gotham City in a heavy cloak. All the usual sounds had disappeared. No honks, no screeching tires, no music, no people talking, laughing, or arguing. Though it was not exactly silent either. All over the city creepers crawled and trees grew swallowing the buildings one after the other, covering every inch of concrete and asphalt with scraping sounds. The vegetal scab spread, unstoppable.

Forty minutes after having been rescued by Talia, who had taken the amphibious Tumbler in the depth of Gotham's River and through the busted metro tunnel linking Sheal's main land to Midland Island, Bruce, now in Batman's armor, turned his tank's large wheels into a dead end, snatching the hairy lianas that hung between the two warehouses on either side of the dark alley.

The usual message requesting authentication flashed on the central console. Tense, Batman stared, perplexed at the greyish curtain of creepers covering the garage door and identified himself. A female voice acknowledged clearance. For a moment nothing happened, and Batman felt irritated at the thought that he would have to blast his way through. But finally, the creepers started to quiver and broke.

Relieved, Batman lead the Tumbler through the opening and into a low ceiling tunnel that spiraled down toward the basement of the Wayne Tower.

About sixty years ago the construction of the underground rail line had severed some galleries of sewers, including the one running beneath the dead end, from the rest of the network. For a year this one was the passageway he used to sneak in and out of the Wayne Tower in all discretion while some others, scattered on all the city's ground, he used to hide when the police were too hot on his heels.

Next to him, Talia sighed of relief when the driving suddenly became smooth and silent.

"Bloody hell..." a raspy voiced Kate suddenly said.

Batman smirked upon hearing the familiar curse and briefly averted his eyes from the tunnel to glance at Kate, stuck between Talia and the passenger's door. "How do you feel?"

"Like Alice in Wonderland... fallen in a deep, dark pit," Kate replied after a moment, obviously disoriented. "It's colder than I'd imagined," she added, shivering as she brought her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around her legs.

Batman switched off the air conditioning and made himself a mental note to add a blanket in the Tumbler at the first opportunity, or spare clothes, as Kate tended to get herself soaked from head to toe each time they met.

From the corner of his eye he saw her favoring her left arm and focusing her eyes on Talia. "Not that I'm not grateful, but how did you find us?" she asked a touch aggressively. And he was not really surprised to hear Talia's answer rocketing with a condescending tone.

"Tracking MI6 spies is not that difficult a task. They rely too much on the superiority of their geek gadgets."

Bruce mentally cursed. Until now, the promiscuity was manageable, but the tension spiked as he saw both women shifting to avoid any physical contact.

"Oh, right. My sub-dermal transmitter..." Kate sighed, nodding absently.

A silence fell, and after a few long seconds Bruce let out a discreet sigh of relief thinking that Kate was finally too tired to care. He had more worrying matters in his mind at that instant, and the perspective to–Kate's angry voice suddenly interrupted his thoughts.

"I'll give you another _highly_ advanced technology we use. Electric light," she snapped, extending an arm to switch on the cabin lights, "Very practical. Allows you to see innocents' blood on your murdering hands!"

"How dare you to-"

"Enough," Bruce growled, switching off the lights with a quick move, "I'm not sure the welcoming party will be pleasant."

The announcement of coming trouble silenced both women.

The knot that twisted his guts since he had gotten the premonition that he had compromised the Tower somehow was clenching tighter and tighter. That he had not been able to join Alfred after the difficult nights he and Kate had made him live was a bit worrying, although he would understand if his old friend had succumbed to sleep. On the other hand, the fact that Lucius did not answer his calls scared him, and what should have been the safest place in all Midtown now looked like a deadly trap.

Cautious, Bruce stopped the Tumbler just under a ventilation grid fifty yards from the door leading to Lucius's lair.

"I'm gonna check inside first. Wait here for my signal," Bruce growled, switching on the embedded sonar of his mask as he hauled himself out of the cabin through the sunroof.

In a few, swift movements, he quickly dislodged the grid, put it down on the Tumbler's roof, and slid inside the shaft.

"Hey! Wait a minute!" Kate called, keeping her voice low. "Do you have a torch light and a gun hidden somewhere?"

"I have no need for light, and I don't use guns," he growled, his words reverberating on the tunnel walls.

As he turned away to crawl inside the ventilation shaft, he heard Kate grumbling, "Your voice's creepy, you know?"

A smirk appeared on his lips as he moved deeper inside. Thirty yards further, he stopped at the junction with three secondary shafts that each ventilated an independent unit in the hidden basement.

Since Coleman Reese's unfortunate misadventure, he and Lucius had taken steps so nobody would roam the basement and stumble on compromising documents. Now, the common elevators opened on the Archive Department, a vast maze of shelves and file cabinets. At one end, a bio-metrically controlled blast door gave access to what was officially labeled as the _CEO's lair_. Though for most of the employees, this was only a legend.

As he crawled inside the middle shaft running above the office, Batman was twice as careful not to make any sound. Like the one in the cave beneath the manor, the unit between the laboratory and the white room was worthy of a control room in a NASA center. What kind of terrorist would deny its usefulness? If this was what he had betrayed, they were in trouble.

A sudden, searing pain exploded in his head, and Batman had to pause to catch his breath.

Damn... why was he feeling so bad each time he tried to think to whom he could have talked about the basement.

Jaw clenched, he resumed his way and stopped at a square ventilation grid less than a dozen yards further. Cautious, he cast a look in the office. Below the cowl, his eyes widened briefly before narrowing under the effect of an anger that was directed mainly against himself.

Growing from a small pot put on the interactive table standing in the middle of the room, creepers ran down the ground and grew on the walls, spreading in all directions.

Jaw clenched, Batman stared at the vegetal organism swallowing the twelve-foot-wide sensitive screen built in the wall common with the lab and realized that it was a matter of minutes before it would reach the ceiling. Once there, it would spread toward the ventilation grid and nothing would keep it from invading the whole basement.

Unless he sanitized the place. That idea prompted the Dark Knight to move again.

As silently as possible, he crawled toward the end of the shaft. After checking that the narrow corridor running alongside the three units on one side, and giving access to the private elevator and the Department of Archives on the other side, was free he removed the grid and was about to jump down to the ground when a curse in Hindi sounded behind him.

Batman craned his neck to look above his shoulder and saw Talia struggling to free her leg.

"Not again," he muttered, moving fast toward her. As soon as he reached her, he crawled over her body, and with a batarang, cut the creeper that had wrapped around her ankle just as another one pointed its nose through the office ventilation grid.

"Crawl to the opened grid and jump down! Quick!" he growled, pushing her.

A few seconds later, he jumped down at his turn in the narrow corridor, and grabbed her arm to drag her away from the shaft. "Where's Kate?" he asked as he opened the door of the small mechanical room next to the lab.

"She was in the Tumbler when I left."

Batman took a breath and activated his throat mike.

"Kate, do you hear me?" he asked, disconnecting the three halon cylinders and replacing them with ETO gas cylinders so that when he would pull on the fire plug, the sterilizing gas would be delivered to the whole basement. "Seal yourself in the Tumbler right away! Kate? Damn!" Batman cursed when he failed to get an answer. Knowing the MI6 operative, she had probably gone exploring the tunnel to ease her nerves after having exchanged some crude words with Talia.

"Come with me," he said to Talia as he walked out of the mechanical room and headed toward a recess delimited by yellow strips on the ground and that gave access to Lucius's private elevator and the Archives.

Catching sight of a creeper coming out of the ventilation shaft, Batman opened the security panel and pushed on the red button that activated the emergency lockdown of the basement.

"Kate, are you sealed in the Tumbler?" he asked again, staring at a blast wall rising from the ground to seal their own zone from the rest of the basement and the creepers.

Kate' voice suddenly crackled in his ear. "_I found something strange ahead of your tank. Be careful there might be-"_

"Plants, I know. I'm gonna sterilize the whole area. ETO gas will reach your position in two hours. Don't move out until at least another four, you heard me?" he asked as he pulled the fire plug.

"_Ethylene oxide? It has narcotic side effects, hasn't it?"_

"Aside from scrapping your lungs if you breathe it, yeah," he replied, hearing the blowing of the gas in the pipes.

_"Great! And your tank air filters are designed to keep me from visiting the Nirvana?"_

"Well... never tested them. But it's either that or let the creepers get to you," Bruce replied, pushing on the elevator calling button.

"_I hate your city... If I manage to survive this, I'll ask to go back to Afghanistan! Desert and guns, regular bombs, no killing trees that transforms people into C4!"_

Though tense, Batman smirked. "Stay positive, Kate. Now, think you can sleep for six hours straight?"

"_Oh great! A six hour long nightmare. I missed that. You said I had two hours before it reaches my position?"_

"Yeah, why?" Batman asked, perplexed by Kate's demand of confirmation.

"_I think I'm gonna check on something."_

A sigh of annoyance escaped the Dark Knight's lips. "Kate?" he growled, using a reproachful tone that caused an irritated_"What?" _to rocket.

"Be careful," he sighed. Whatever the MI6 agent had in mind, there was little he could say to keep her from doing it.

"_Yes, dad!" _

Batman was shaking his head in despair at Kate's answer when the elevator's doors slid open. Next to him, Talia cringed, while from the corner of the eye, he saw a hand stained with blood falling on the ground.


End file.
